[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / DEVEL.HUMOR

---------------- -*- mode: text; coding: utf-8; fill-column: 70 -*- --
--                                                                  --
-- Humor (sometimes unintended) on the Emacs developer's list       --
--                                                                  --
-- The Free Software Foundation claims no copyright on this file,   --
-- compiled from the public emacs-devel mailing list.               --
--                                                                  --
----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Is it legal for a `struct interval' to have a total_length field of
zero?"
  "We can't be arrested for it as far as I know, but it is definitely
invalid for an interval to have zero length."
                                                -- Miles Bader and RMS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: lost argument and doc string

I remember when I lost an argument.  Boy did that hurt!  ;-).
                                                      -- RMS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "'Cowardly' is not an adverb, although it looks like one.  It is an
adjective.  It makes a statement about general temperament, rather
than a specific occasion.  I don't think Emacs has a general
temperament."
  "Mine does."
                                             -- RMS and Eli Zaretskii

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "In order to bring the user's attention to the minibuffer when an
item such as 'Edit -> Search' is activated from the menu, I was just
thinking that we could draw a big rectangle around the minibuffer,
blinking (or zooming in-and-out) until some input is typed in."
  "How about dancing elephants?"
  "They don't fit in my office."
  "Well once the elephants are done, your office will be much...
bigger."
                  -- Stefan Monnier, Miles Bader and Kai Grossjohann

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I remember these versions as yard-rocks (is that between inch-pebbles
and mile-stones?).
                                                   -- Kai Grossjohann

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "I think it depends on video drivers.  I cannot reproduce it on my
home PC, but I can at work."
  "Can you try to find a workaround at work?  (I guess you don't need
a homearound at home.  ;-)"
                                              -- Jason Rumney and RMS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

By the way, I also really really hate this unibyte/multibyte problem.
Sometimes I think I should have opposed to the introduction of such a
concept more strongly.

    imagine there's no unibyte
    it's easy if you try
    no bytes below us
    above us only chars
    imagine all the people living in multibyte

                                                     -- Kenichi Handa

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I try to uphold the ideals that I was taught to value as an American,
but every year I get less and less help from the United States.
                                                              -- RMS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "If the terminfo entry is most likely wrong, and we know it, then it
doesn't make sense to follow it."
  "Nevertheless, until now, we always did."
  "So.... should we not fix old bugs?"
  "Why fix an old bug if you can write three new ones in the same
time?"
                       -- Miles Bader, Eli Zaretskii and David Kastrup

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  [...] As is well known, people who speak American English tend to
be more resource-conscious and try to avoid wasting precious bits
transferring those redundant "u"s.
  Think of the number of occurrences of "color" and "behavior" in the
Emacs tarball, multiply that by the number of times it'll be
downloaded, stored on hard disks, archived, ...that's a substantial
saving.
                                                    -- Stefan Monnier

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Parent of a derived mode's keymap.

  "I can't decide whether the title of this thread is more fitting for
a blues song or a pulp fiction booklet.  It certainly projects drama."
  "Hey, it says derived, not deprived."
  "Actually, for some keymaps 'depraved' would fit better."
  "I knew it!  You're one of them vi lovers!  There is nothing wrong
with Emacs using escape, meta, alt, control, and shift!"
                                     -- David Kastrup and Lute Kamstra

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Aren't user-defined constants useful in other languages?"
  "The only user-defined constant is ignorance.  (With programmers,
this is a variable concept ;-)"
                        -- Juanma Barranquero and Thien-Thi Nguyen

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Uh, 'archaic' and 'alive' is not a contradiction."
  "Yes it is.  'Archaic' does not mean 'old' or 'early'.  It means
'obsolete'."
  "'He arche' in Greek means 'the beginning'.  John 1 starts off with
'En arche en ho Logos': in the beginning, there was the word.  Now of
course we all know that Emacs was there before Word, but this might
have escaped John's notice."
                                             -- David Kastrup and RMS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: patch for woman (woman-topic-at-point)

  "Sorry for the long message.  I wanted to make the problem clear
also for people not familiar with `woman'."
  "Most hackers, I take?
   For a moment there I thought you had a patch that you could put on
a woman, and it would make her come right to the topic at point
without attempting any course of action that requires an advance
course in divination.
   There'd be quite a sensational market for that, you know."
                                    -- Emilio Lopes and David Kastrup

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "[T]here may be a good reason since the code explicitly checks for
this; see keyboard.c:789 [...]"
  "I think I understand, but I can't find the code in keyboard.c.  Do
you really mean 'line 789'?  Of which revision?"
  "Sorry; by 789, I mean 3262 :-P"
                                   -- Chong Yidong and Stefan Monnier

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "[...] In my opinion, your change does not either increase or
decrease readability.  It's a tossup."
  "Uh, setting tem to '', an artificial empty string, in order to have
j incremented once again before breaking out of the finished loop is
readable?
   Is this kind of 'readable' synonymous to 'comprehensible with
serious effort', reminiscent of mathematicians' use of 'trivial' as
synonymous with 'provable with serious effort'?"
                                              -- RMS and David Kastrup

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: New Emacs Icon and Tango

  "What about using the 'happy face' with gnu horns?"
  "It would make Emacs the object of ridicule until the end of time."
  "Isn't it already?"
  "It's the object of ridicule until the end of _tape_.  The jury is
still out about that end of time thing."
                 -- Kim F. Storm, Miles Bader, RMS and David Kastrup

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Despite being a maths graduate, I can't think of any other such
constants with anything like the universality of e and pi."
  "42"
                                -- Alan Mackenzie and David Hansen

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "[...] So please do not delete anything."
  "Done."
                                              -- RMS and David Kastrup

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "I guess that can work in some circumstances, but it bypasses the
printer drivers.  Couldn't that lead to problems for the printer
drivers?"
  "Current research is that software does not suffer feelings of
depression or loneliness when it is left out of the picture, so I
wouldn't worry about it too much."
                                -- Lennart Borgman and Jason Rumney

----------------------------------------------------------------------

  "... a non-CS-educated guy like me ..."

  "Kind of late, but thanks for letting us know.  I've just revoked your
  write access to the repository for the obvious safety reasons,"
                                -- Bastien Guerry and Stefan Monnier
Commit	Line	Data
e2fc34ad JB	1	---------------- -- mode: text; coding: utf-8; fill-column: 70 -- --
	2	-- --
	3	-- Humor (sometimes unintended) on the Emacs developer's list --
	4	-- --
ed854aad GM	5	-- The Free Software Foundation claims no copyright on this file, --
	6	-- compiled from the public emacs-devel mailing list. --
	7	-- --
e2fc34ad JB	8	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	9
	10	"Is it legal for a `struct interval' to have a total_length field of
	11	zero?"
	12	"We can't be arrested for it as far as I know, but it is definitely
	13	invalid for an interval to have zero length."
	14	-- Miles Bader and RMS
	15
	16	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	17
	18	Re: lost argument and doc string
	19
	20	I remember when I lost an argument. Boy did that hurt! ;-).
	21	-- RMS
	22
	23	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	24
	25	"'Cowardly' is not an adverb, although it looks like one. It is an
	26	adjective. It makes a statement about general temperament, rather
	27	than a specific occasion. I don't think Emacs has a general
	28	temperament."
	29	"Mine does."
	30	-- RMS and Eli Zaretskii
	31
	32	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	33
	34	"In order to bring the user's attention to the minibuffer when an
	35	item such as 'Edit -> Search' is activated from the menu, I was just
	36	thinking that we could draw a big rectangle around the minibuffer,
	37	blinking (or zooming in-and-out) until some input is typed in."
	38	"How about dancing elephants?"
	39	"They don't fit in my office."
	40	"Well once the elephants are done, your office will be much...
	41	bigger."
	42	-- Stefan Monnier, Miles Bader and Kai Grossjohann
	43
	44	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	45
	46	I remember these versions as yard-rocks (is that between inch-pebbles
	47	and mile-stones?).
	48	-- Kai Grossjohann
	49
	50	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	51
	52	"I think it depends on video drivers. I cannot reproduce it on my
	53	home PC, but I can at work."
	54	"Can you try to find a workaround at work? (I guess you don't need
	55	a homearound at home. ;-)"
	56	-- Jason Rumney and RMS
	57
	58	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	59
	60	By the way, I also really really hate this unibyte/multibyte problem.
	61	Sometimes I think I should have opposed to the introduction of such a
	62	concept more strongly.
	63
	64	imagine there's no unibyte
	65	it's easy if you try
	66	no bytes below us
	67	above us only chars
	68	imagine all the people living in multibyte
	69
	70	-- Kenichi Handa
	71
72	----------------------------------------------------------------------
73
74	I try to uphold the ideals that I was taught to value as an American,
75	but every year I get less and less help from the United States.
76	-- RMS
77
78	----------------------------------------------------------------------
79
80	"If the terminfo entry is most likely wrong, and we know it, then it
81	doesn't make sense to follow it."
82	"Nevertheless, until now, we always did."
83	"So.... should we not fix old bugs?"
84	"Why fix an old bug if you can write three new ones in the same
85	time?"
86	-- Miles Bader, Eli Zaretskii and David Kastrup
87
88	----------------------------------------------------------------------
89
90	[...] As is well known, people who speak American English tend to
91	be more resource-conscious and try to avoid wasting precious bits
92	transferring those redundant "u"s.
93	Think of the number of occurrences of "color" and "behavior" in the
94	Emacs tarball, multiply that by the number of times it'll be
95	downloaded, stored on hard disks, archived, ...that's a substantial
96	saving.
97	-- Stefan Monnier
98
99	----------------------------------------------------------------------
100
101	Re: Parent of a derived mode's keymap.
102
103	"I can't decide whether the title of this thread is more fitting for
104	a blues song or a pulp fiction booklet. It certainly projects drama."
105	"Hey, it says derived, not deprived."
106	"Actually, for some keymaps 'depraved' would fit better."
107	"I knew it! You're one of them vi lovers! There is nothing wrong
108	with Emacs using escape, meta, alt, control, and shift!"
109	-- David Kastrup and Lute Kamstra
110
111	----------------------------------------------------------------------
112
113	"Aren't user-defined constants useful in other languages?"
114	"The only user-defined constant is ignorance. (With programmers,
115	this is a variable concept ;-)"
116	-- Juanma Barranquero and Thien-Thi Nguyen
117
118	----------------------------------------------------------------------
119
120	"Uh, 'archaic' and 'alive' is not a contradiction."
121	"Yes it is. 'Archaic' does not mean 'old' or 'early'. It means
122	'obsolete'."
123	"'He arche' in Greek means 'the beginning'. John 1 starts off with
124	'En arche en ho Logos': in the beginning, there was the word. Now of
125	course we all know that Emacs was there before Word, but this might
126	have escaped John's notice."
127	-- David Kastrup and RMS
128
129	----------------------------------------------------------------------
130
73a99edb DK	131	Re: patch for woman (woman-topic-at-point)
73a99edb DK	132
e2fc34ad JB	133	"Sorry for the long message. I wanted to make the problem clear
	134	also for people not familiar with `woman'."
	135	"Most hackers, I take?
	136	For a moment there I thought you had a patch that you could put on
	137	a woman, and it would make her come right to the topic at point
	138	without attempting any course of action that requires an advance
	139	course in divination.
	140	There'd be quite a sensational market for that, you know."
	141	-- Emilio Lopes and David Kastrup
ac2072cd JB	142
	143	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	144
	145	"[T]here may be a good reason since the code explicitly checks for
	146	this; see keyboard.c:789 [...]"
	147	"I think I understand, but I can't find the code in keyboard.c. Do
	148	you really mean 'line 789'? Of which revision?"
	149	"Sorry; by 789, I mean 3262 :-P"
	150	-- Chong Yidong and Stefan Monnier
	151
	152	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	153
	154	"[...] In my opinion, your change does not either increase or
	155	decrease readability. It's a tossup."
	156	"Uh, setting tem to '', an artificial empty string, in order to have
	157	j incremented once again before breaking out of the finished loop is
	158	readable?
	159	Is this kind of 'readable' synonymous to 'comprehensible with
	160	serious effort', reminiscent of mathematicians' use of 'trivial' as
	161	synonymous with 'provable with serious effort'?"
	162	-- RMS and David Kastrup
e1fb4a0b JB	163
	164	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	165
	166	Re: New Emacs Icon and Tango
	167
	168	"What about using the 'happy face' with gnu horns?"
	169	"It would make Emacs the object of ridicule until the end of time."
	170	"Isn't it already?"
	171	"It's the object of ridicule until the end of _tape_. The jury is
	172	still out about that end of time thing."
	173	-- Kim F. Storm, Miles Bader, RMS and David Kastrup
4c4e05bb JB	174
	175	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	176
	177	"Despite being a maths graduate, I can't think of any other such
	178	constants with anything like the universality of e and pi."
	179	"42"
	180	-- Alan Mackenzie and David Hansen
c3662bfb KS	181
	182	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	183
	184	"[...] So please do not delete anything."
	185	"Done."
	186	-- RMS and David Kastrup
1966aa84 JB	187
	188	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	189
	190	"I guess that can work in some circumstances, but it bypasses the
	191	printer drivers. Couldn't that lead to problems for the printer
	192	drivers?"
	193	"Current research is that software does not suffer feelings of
e11ebb0c	194	depression or loneliness when it is left out of the picture, so I
1966aa84 JB	195	wouldn't worry about it too much."
1966aa84 JB	196	-- Lennart Borgman and Jason Rumney
10d604f9 BG	197
	198	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	199
	200	"... a non-CS-educated guy like me ..."
	201
	202	"Kind of late, but thanks for letting us know. I've just revoked your
	203	write access to the repository for the obvious safety reasons,"
	204	-- Bastien Guerry and Stefan Monnier