Inner Drive Software

My colleague Cameron Beatley sent me this handy chart:

Quick Guide to Programming Languages

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 handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

Task

Shoot yourself in the foot.

Comparison

C

You shoot yourself in the foot.

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."

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 with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception-handling capability.

Pascal

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

Ada

After correctly packing 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 you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.

COBOL

Using 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 re-tied.

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

FORTH

Foot in yourself shoot.

Prolog

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

BASIC

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

Visual Basic

You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.

HyperTalk

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

Motif

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

APL

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

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
%

Concurrent Euclid

You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

370 JCL

You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Paradox

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

Access

You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

Revelation

You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little bullet-thingies are for.

Assembler

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

Modula2

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