If Programming Languages Were Futurama Characters | Hacker News Reader

If Programming Languages Were Futurama Characters

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164 pointszdw46 comments

Actually I think Java and C# would be the two presidential candidates John Jackson and Jack Johnson. "I think Java's final classes go too far", "well I think C#'s sealed classes don't go too far enough!"

Roberto is Brainfuck: insane, wants to stab you

https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Roberto

Wormstrom is R: old, powerful, pretends to be his own thing when he's actually only effective in a handful of scenarios. Uses others to accomplish his goals but takes their victories as his.

http://web.archive.org/web/20220510032130/https://www.netmei...

If Only Ruby was actually popular outside of our own circle, I might have an easier time at hiring ruby devs :(

As a Perl dev, I learned Ruby once, then was like, "why am I learning Ruby, I'll just use Perl."

Then I went back to Perl. Sorry. =D

I wish the problem with looking for Ruby jobs was that there was too many perl jobs.

Protip (if youre a smaller shop): Hire developers because they are good programmers. Programming languages are easier than you think to learn. If they already know Python, Ruby is not that different. Most C-like languages are easy to pick up if you already know one of them. Train them on Ruby once hired :)

I have tried Rust, unsuccessfully, to simply play around and to create some data generators. That extremely limited experience completely transformed the way I think about resource ownership and mutation. It made me a better programmer.

Yeah I tried that, but being a small shop, I just can't afford to match the salaries of the bigger companies, and after a year (of mostly training) they get poached by a company that can pay 20-30k more than my little bootstrapped startup can :(

I'm Ruby and I ran the sample code:

I ran `puts "@aq`b`,Ctg".split("").map(&:succ)*''`

Which outputs `Abraca-Duh` and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Does that fact that I'm Ruby and I've come here to ask that really highlights how much I'm channeling Amy Wong doesn't it?

I've got it now. .succ returns the successor to str. But why on earth would one ever run "@".succ to get 'A'? Seems like a useless function, but I expect I'll just it one day. Good to know.

Lisp is the Planet Express Ship...

"Tubes!? You're older than you said!"

I really enjoyed this - kind of a throwback to the old internet :)

Could terraform be Zap Brannigan? Overly confident but often trips over its own feet?

Philip J. Fry is... Perl ??? WTF, obviously Fry is VBScript.

to expand on this - Perl is still one of the best languages to do text manipulation, Fry is not the best at anything and furthermore he language thinking not so good, him?

ok I guess Fry is the best at not having both kinds of brain waves and thus being the only being in the universe capable of defeating those floating brains guys but that is the best by virtue of being the worst.

I probably would have said Fry was Rexx or JCL, but I like where you went with it.

I'd have argued Lisp, given its metacircular interpreter and him being his own grandpa.

maybe he is running a scheme interpreter implemented in VBScript.

Also - Kif Kroker is definitely Four million lines of BASIC!

I like it but it needs more effort. For example, the Zapp/Java joke simply doesn't work. Zapp doesn't overcome enemies "with complexity", he spends his men in human wave attacks. He doesn't enjoy bureaucracy, he doesn't give a f*ck. He just doesn't understand things. Zapp wouldn't be able to program in Java (or in anything, he would delegate everything to Kif while harassing some secretary).

Zapp is probably a Scrum Master (he didn't actually do the certification, he just sketched with pencils a fake certificate).

I'm with you. Some of those are really inspired, but Zapp is not Java. If anything, Hermes is Java - HUGE fan of bureaucracy and design by committee.

Zapp is HTML. Not a real programming language. Bloated. And somehow you keep finding it everywhere, even in places you really don't want to see him.

> he spends his men in human wave attacks

That's a better pun, but it still sounds like Java.

One team I worked with had >20 people and was building not that complex webapp. >70% of the team were Java programmers and they were always behind the schedule. At some point one of JS guys decided to write Java to help them catch up.

Getting Kif thrown into the next wave of attack is so Zapp.

> Zapp wouldn't be able to program in Java

He is Java.

> [Zapp] is Java

Like I said, not a good joke. Nothing about Zapp seems Java-like.

Like you said "he spends his men in human wave attacks"

Java seemingly requires countless bodies thrown into the fight to achieve even the simplest of goals.

Really? I've worked most of my professional life with Java and that's never been the case. Teams were always fairly small, 3 to 5 people. The 20-people (!!!) team you mentioned in your anecdote sounds like it would have failed with any technology.

A better characterization of Java is: reliable, battle-tested, bureaucratic, needlessly verbose, and used for many enterprisey (aka boring) projects. That doesn't match Zapp's personality: he's brash, self-promoting, ignorant, deluded about his own importance and accomplishments, and cruel to subordinates -- who do the actual work.

So Salesforce is a far better match. Failing that, an Engineer Manager job would also suit Zapp.

Hermes is a better match for Java, at least for bureaucracy and suitability for mind-boggingly boring tasks.

Oh, but that team did not fail. They eventually succeeded through the great effort just like good Zapp's troops, they were.

I think there's a very good reason that small startups rarely use Java but Enterprises with limitless resources to tackle simplest problems just love it.

I wrote some small commercial stuff in Java and it was anything but small. But I'm not Java programmer and I never will be if I can help it.

Let's agree to disagree.

Zapp is Salesforce. Not a programming language, but often used in places where a programming language would be better suited. Overconfident and underqualified.

HypnoToad is APL. Once you look you can never look away. You'll never understand but you know there's understanding just out of reach.

Nice. I wrote a similar one some time ago, that I need to update for 2022

Your Favorite Programming Language Sucks https://new.pythonforengineers.com/blog/favorite-programming...

I loled at "LOL leftpad"!!!

Okay so which programming language is the robot devil?

Zsh. Is evil but not as much as Bender.

Wouldn't that be Flexo?

Not as well known as Bender, but just as capable. In fact, probably more capable according to those who know him, but it's so close that hardly anyone cares.

Tends to get flattened when people try mixing his work with existing Bender work. The two just don't go well together.

I like it. It matches so well.

Presumably Eiffel, given his penchant for contracts.

If Java offered a trade of hands so I could play an instrument, it would be the best thing Java ever did to me.

Nibbler is Lua? Small, powerful, can bite.

Nix.

Supposedly simple, but nobody except his acolytes can understand him.

Everything technically fits together contractually, but good luck with the fine print.

Delights in the torment and frustration of others. The fact that he can always lay the blame on them as architects of their own doom is just icing on the hellish cake.

Further note: It helps to read this description in the Robot Devil's jovial voice.

And add a few moments of delectable "mwahahaha" here and there...

Malboge, right?

I actually think the Robot devil is C, powerful, talented and dangerous. If anyone cares I would say The professor is assembly language.

SVG is the Holophoner.Complicate structures that very few can use, but beautiful output.

"Zapp Brannagan is... Java" sooo true

Which one is God?

(He knows everything you’re going to do, unless you do something else, then he doesn’t know that. C with undefined behavior?)

Kif Kroger is actually BASIC. Four million lines of it!

Haha, there's a HelloWorld factory, haha, Java, amirite?

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