Help for computer illiterate

[Wardad]

Understanding Programing Languages 101:

C
You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++
You accidently 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."

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.

Modula-2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

COBOL
USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM 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.

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

FORTH
Foot in yourself shoot.

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

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

Concurrent Euclid
You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

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

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

XBase
Shooting yourself is no problem. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, you'll have to use Clipper.

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

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

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

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.

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

[Wardad]

Oh, I'm a programmer and I'm O.K.
I work all night and I sleep all day

He's a programmer and he's O.K.
He works all night and he sleeps all day

I type in code, I read my dumps, I take them to the lavatory,
On Wednesdays I finish debugging and write thirteen lines of C

He types in code, he prints his dumps, he takes them to the lavatory,
On Wednesdays he finishes debugging and writes thirteen lines of C

He's a programmer and he's O.K.
He works all night and he sleeps all day

I type in code, I branch and jump, I bump the switch marked 'power'
I write modules in COBOL that hang the server for hours.

He types in code, he branches and jumps, he bumps the switch marked 'power'
He writes modules in COBOL that hang the server for hours!?!
Yeecch!

He's a programmer and he's O.K.
He works all night and he sleeps all day

I type in code, I spill tape reels, punchcards, and cola
I wish I'd been an ME, just like my dear mama!

He types in code, he spills tape reels, punchcards, and... COLA!?!
[various outraged and incoherent deprecatory mumblings]

He's a programmer and he's O.K.
He works all night and he sleeps all day....

[Wardad]

'Twas the night before deadline and all through the house
Each programmer was typing or flailing her mouse.

The modules were queued for the compiler with care
in hopes that Saint Niklaus soon would be there.

My procedures were nested, all BEGINS matched their ENDS
The WHILEs and the FORs all with their indents.

When all of a sudden there arose such a clatter
I was afraid that the hard drive had just crashed a platter.

Away with the windows, I shut down each task
Flipped open the drive door, turned the power off fast.

The whirr of the hard drive wound down painfully slow,
And I hoped there were backups all ready to go.

When what should my bloodshot eyes see on a chair,
But a miniature Cray and eight disks of software,

With a little old programmer, so structured and quick
I knew in a nanosecond it must be Saint Nik.

More rapid than Cybers his cursors displayed,
As he typed and he pointed and called them rude names.

Now, Crasher! now, Spooler! now, Compiler and Linker!
On, Edit! on, Q-bert! on Debugger and Lister!

To the tops of the files, to see what they call!
We'll delete a line, delete a line, delete most of them all!

I sat back in terror, knowing not what he planned,
Whatever programs he carried, I knew they weren't canned.

So up to the window-tops the cursors they drew,
With his Cray full of RAM--and Saint Niklaus too.

And then in a twinkling he grabbed my keyboard,
Yanking it so far he straightened its coiled cord.

I lept back in shock as he switched on the power,
Right next to the turbo light on the front of the tower.

The memory passed, each meg, one by one,
The computer booted up, all ready to run.

A bundle of disks he whipped out of his pack,
Each labeled with care with notes scribbled in black.

His forehead did wrinkle, his eyes narrow and hard,
He flipped through each disk like a dealer each card.

His mouth was pursed in what looked like a frown
As he paged through my code, then gestured 'thumbs down.'

A mug of stale coffee he grasped, hand clutched like a ball,
And gulped the stuff down, non-dairy creamer and all.

Now he thrust in a disk, right in the drive slot,
Labeled Editor/debugger/compiler/hotshot.

And then in a flash, he created a path,
I dared not object, lest I face his wrath.

He filled half my disk, with one .EXE file,
Then started it up, typing one-finger style.

Windows erupted, eighty files did he edit,
He typed his code faster than I could have read it.

His hands were a blur, his fingers were humming,
And in just fifteen seconds, our program was running.

He spoke not one word, stowed his disks in his pocket,
Then raced to his Cray, just as fast as a rocket.

He reached down and tugged that tiny Cray's circuit breaker,
And then they did vanish, half a millisecond later.

But I heard him explain as he disappeared from sight,
"Don't expect documentation before late Thursday night!"

[oleg]

OK, here are Cyborg.
1045623766.zip
I kind of like her more than Hive faction portrait Unzip into any race folder, for example .../pictures/races/terran, rename original files to something else and rename cyborg_....bmp files into "racename"_....bmp. Let me know how do you like it and whether should I convert more pictures.

[Desdinova]

wardad - LOL. maybe oneday if i try real hard i will understand what you are talking about in the proper context. as it is it just sounds hilarious.

[CNCRaymond]

Someone wrote a nice ship set tutorial and it is included on the Gold CD in the extra folder. I think there is a link to download it in one of the Sticky threads to. Ship Set Tutorial.

But basically, convert Image to BMP format
Portrait = 128 pixels by 128 pixels. (Thats up and sideways for those of us who did not know that.)

Mini are 36 x 36 pixels. (Same applies.)

A good program to use is ACDsee 4.0 (Later Version are a bit harder to learn, but overall the program is great.) You can get a demo from www.download.com

[ February 19, 2003, 08:42: Message edited by: CNCRaymond ]

[Hunkpapa]

Cyborgs look great thanks.

Here is another site with faction pictures and flags

http://www.aliencrossfire.de/

[ February 19, 2003, 16:01: Message edited by: Hunkpapa ]