Which programming language?

How to tell which programming language you're using

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This guide is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such dilemmas.

370 JCL

You send your foot down to NIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Ada

After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.

APL

You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.

Assembly

You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.

BASIC

Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

C

You shoot yourself in the font.

C++

You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."

COBOL

Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIN gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.

Concurrent Euclid

You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

FORTH

Foot in yourself shoot.

FORTRAN

You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.

Hypertalk

Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you.
Answer the result.

LISP

You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds ...

Modula2

After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

Motif

You spend days writing a UlL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scroliwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

Paradox

Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.

Pascal

The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Prolog

You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.

Revelation

You'll shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all the bullets are for.

SNOBOL

If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot.
If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

Unix

% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm: .o: No such file or directory
% ls

Visual Basic

You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.

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