Date: Tue, 7 Feb 95 13:12:54 CST
From: ray (Ray Shea)
Message-Id: <9502071912.AA06151@ses.com>
To: humor
Subject: Fortunostics
Status: R

To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Subject: Fortunostics

Forwarded-by: Peter Langston <pud!psl@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Forwarded-by: tompar@world.std.com (Tom Parmenter)
Forwarded-by: jo@odi.com

From: booda@lynx.navo.navy.mil

    Maybe it's because I ate Chinese last night, but I got a couple of
cc/ldr diagnostics today that sounded a LOT like what you'd read on
fortune cookie fortunes:

cc-172 cc: WARNING file = /u/xb/aagp/new_aagp/aagp_setup.c, Line = 185
  No code is generated for a superfluous expression.
[...]
ldr-133 cc: WARNING
    Unsatisfied external references have been encountered.

     Doesn't it seem that the folks who write compiler diagnostic messages
moonlight as writers in Fortune Cookie factories?  The same
terseness, the same mystical obscurity, the same vaguely
threatening equivocation.  I almost expect the diagnostics to be
followed by winning lottery numbers.
     I began to consider the confusion if diagnostics were somehow
mixed up with the fortunes.  Imagine the reaction of a diner opening
up a cookie and seeing:

    "Variable "buf" is used before it is assigned."

     ...especially if that is, indeed, the problem in the program he's debug-
ging at work!  (Rod Serling, are you listening?)  And imagine the popularity
of a compiler which provided _really_ useful information, like:

    "The inflexible man forgets that the rice is harvested by bending."

     every time it encounters a syntax error.  The best idea, I think, is to
come up with phrases which could be used equally well either as fortunes _or_
diagnostics:

    "It is most unwise to build upon an undefined structure."
    "The sow mates not with the bull; nor the int * with the char."
    "Correct previous errors before persevering to gather objects."
    "Ambiguous references presage Bus Errors; pause and reflect."
    "The wise nightingale contains its new nest entirely within the old."
    "Help!  I'm a prisoner in an ADA factory!"

     (hehe, just kidding with that last one)  The sum effect of such an
effort would be to both improve the computer literacy and programming
ability of the general (well, at least those who frequent Chinese
restaurants) public, and to cultivate wisdom and aesthetic tranquility
amongst programmers, who sorely need it.