New file for (sometimes unintended) humor in the Emacs developer's list.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / DEVEL.HUMOR
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1---------------- -*- mode: text; coding: utf-8; fill-column: 70 -*- --
2-- --
3-- Humor (sometimes unintended) on the Emacs developer's list --
4-- --
5----------------------------------------------------------------------
6
7 "Is it legal for a `struct interval' to have a total_length field of
8zero?"
9 "We can't be arrested for it as far as I know, but it is definitely
10invalid for an interval to have zero length."
11 -- Miles Bader and RMS
12
13----------------------------------------------------------------------
14
15Re: lost argument and doc string
16
17I remember when I lost an argument. Boy did that hurt! ;-).
18 -- RMS
19
20----------------------------------------------------------------------
21
22 "'Cowardly' is not an adverb, although it looks like one. It is an
23adjective. It makes a statement about general temperament, rather
24than a specific occasion. I don't think Emacs has a general
25temperament."
26 "Mine does."
27 -- RMS and Eli Zaretskii
28
29----------------------------------------------------------------------
30
31 "In order to bring the user's attention to the minibuffer when an
32item such as 'Edit -> Search' is activated from the menu, I was just
33thinking that we could draw a big rectangle around the minibuffer,
34blinking (or zooming in-and-out) until some input is typed in."
35 "How about dancing elephants?"
36 "They don't fit in my office."
37 "Well once the elephants are done, your office will be much...
38bigger."
39 -- Stefan Monnier, Miles Bader and Kai Grossjohann
40
41----------------------------------------------------------------------
42
43I remember these versions as yard-rocks (is that between inch-pebbles
44and mile-stones?).
45 -- Kai Grossjohann
46
47----------------------------------------------------------------------
48
49 "I think it depends on video drivers. I cannot reproduce it on my
50home PC, but I can at work."
51 "Can you try to find a workaround at work? (I guess you don't need
52a homearound at home. ;-)"
53 -- Jason Rumney and RMS
54
55----------------------------------------------------------------------
56
57By the way, I also really really hate this unibyte/multibyte problem.
58Sometimes I think I should have opposed to the introduction of such a
59concept more strongly.
60
61 imagine there's no unibyte
62 it's easy if you try
63 no bytes below us
64 above us only chars
65 imagine all the people living in multibyte
66
67 -- Kenichi Handa
68
69----------------------------------------------------------------------
70
71I try to uphold the ideals that I was taught to value as an American,
72but every year I get less and less help from the United States.
73 -- RMS
74
75----------------------------------------------------------------------
76
77 "If the terminfo entry is most likely wrong, and we know it, then it
78doesn't make sense to follow it."
79 "Nevertheless, until now, we always did."
80 "So.... should we not fix old bugs?"
81 "Why fix an old bug if you can write three new ones in the same
82time?"
83 -- Miles Bader, Eli Zaretskii and David Kastrup
84
85----------------------------------------------------------------------
86
87 [...] As is well known, people who speak American English tend to
88be more resource-conscious and try to avoid wasting precious bits
89transferring those redundant "u"s.
90 Think of the number of occurrences of "color" and "behavior" in the
91Emacs tarball, multiply that by the number of times it'll be
92downloaded, stored on hard disks, archived, ...that's a substantial
93saving.
94 -- Stefan Monnier
95
96----------------------------------------------------------------------
97
98Re: Parent of a derived mode's keymap.
99
100 "I can't decide whether the title of this thread is more fitting for
101a blues song or a pulp fiction booklet. It certainly projects drama."
102 "Hey, it says derived, not deprived."
103 "Actually, for some keymaps 'depraved' would fit better."
104 "I knew it! You're one of them vi lovers! There is nothing wrong
105with Emacs using escape, meta, alt, control, and shift!"
106 -- David Kastrup and Lute Kamstra
107
108----------------------------------------------------------------------
109
110 "Aren't user-defined constants useful in other languages?"
111 "The only user-defined constant is ignorance. (With programmers,
112this is a variable concept ;-)"
113 -- Juanma Barranquero and Thien-Thi Nguyen
114
115----------------------------------------------------------------------
116
117 "Uh, 'archaic' and 'alive' is not a contradiction."
118 "Yes it is. 'Archaic' does not mean 'old' or 'early'. It means
119'obsolete'."
120 "'He arche' in Greek means 'the beginning'. John 1 starts off with
121'En arche en ho Logos': in the beginning, there was the word. Now of
122course we all know that Emacs was there before Word, but this might
123have escaped John's notice."
124 -- David Kastrup and RMS
125
126----------------------------------------------------------------------
127
128 "Sorry for the long message. I wanted to make the problem clear
129also for people not familiar with `woman'."
130 "Most hackers, I take?
131 For a moment there I thought you had a patch that you could put on
132a woman, and it would make her come right to the topic at point
133without attempting any course of action that requires an advance
134course in divination.
135 There'd be quite a sensational market for that, you know."
136 -- Emilio Lopes and David Kastrup