Courtesy of a colleague:

A mother said to her programmer son, "While you're out, buy some bread."

Her son never came home.

Who else knows some fun programmer jokes?

I laughed.

A little boy from a poor family dies and goes to heaven--without having ever accomplished his dream of playing a video game. He approaches God about his wish, and God replies:

"There are no video games in heaven, but if a holy and pious programmer dies, I'll see what I can do."

A week passes, and sure enough, a holy and pious programmer dies and comes to heaven. He is more than happy to fulfill the little boy's dream and immediately begins work. After a few days, however, the programmer approaches God about the game's artwork. God replies:

"There are no bitmaps in heaven, but if a holy and pious pixel artist dies, I'll see what I can do."

A month goes by, and sure enough, a holy and pious pixel artist dies. He immediately joins the team. Months later, the programmer and pixel artist approach God about the game's music. God replies:

"There are no MOD files in heaven, but if a holy and pious tracker dies, I'll see what I can do."

This time, a whole year passes--but sure enough, a holy and pious tracker finally dies and joins the team. The three work together day and night and end up with the perfect game--something truly worthy of being made in heaven. They are so thrilled with their work, in fact, that they would like to give everyone in heaven the chance to play their masterpiece. God hears out their request and replies:

"Look... It took a week to get a programmer, a month to get an artist, and a whole year to get a tracker. Do you have any idea how long it'll take to get a PUBLISHER up here??"

A byte walks into a bar. The bartender looks at it for a while and asks: "What's wrong?"
"Parity error."
"Ah, I thought you looked a bit off."

I don't get the bread joke...

It's okay, it is the subtle jokes that slip by the easiest .

Google is our friend (sometimes):
http://www.devtopics.com/best-programming-jokes/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/programming-jokes-comics-videos/
GOOGLE IMAGE
http://www.workjoke.com/programmers-jokes.html

*Not checked them all, just googled and copy/pasted.

Does this help?

bool isOut=true;
int bread=0;
while (isOut) {
  bread++;
}

Turning the joke into code is supposed to help the understanding ? The joke does kind of make no sense as they say programmers never leave their computer/basement so the whole idea of the programmer going out and never coming home sounds even odder to me.

Specter... The kid interpreted the message as if he was a computer...

while you're out, buy some bread.

There is no break statement like:

while you're out, buy one bread and then come back.

That's is what make us different from computers but a the same time sometimes worst than computers. Our brain has an auto-fill system built-in. But the kid was so used to be programming all day and night that became a compiler...

The funniest bit in the thread is not the jokes, but the fact that Specter trolled Miquelfire for not understanding the joke, when Specter didn't understand it either.

A wife asks her husband, a computer programmer; “Could you please go to the store for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6!”

A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.

The wife asks him, “Why the hell did you buy 6 cartons of milk?”

He replied, “They had eggs.”

Moral of BP's joke: Too much programming made the programmer stupid at life

Same goes for Trent's and probably many other ones

Surely he should have bought seven cartons of milk? Unless of course he's ever written an ambiguous 'else' clause, in which case he would have bought the eggs.

What happened in the original joke when the guy ran out of money? And where would he put it all?

I suppose I'll get flamed for the oldest of all.

Q: Why was the programmer late for work?
A: When he took his morning shower, he read the instructions on the shampoo, "Lather, rinse, repeat".

Depends on how you define understanding it. As I pointed out the joke made little sense to me due to what my interpretation of what a programmer was stereotypically thought of which changed the joke to make if odd to me rather than funny. Even after having it explained for the joke it was meant to be it still has no humor to it for me. The others were funny while that just falls a bit short with me.

[REVISION]

No part of that joke signals you to think of the son as a compiler, instead it makes you think of the programmer stereotype and then it blows the joke completely apart as the stereotype is that we never leave our houses due to always coding.

Gosh darn it, Specter Phoenix, stop making terrible excuses about why you didn't get an obvious joke.

The usual way. The way you didn't.

It's not the joke, it's you. Frankly, this is a reason why you shouldn't be a programmer, you don't even get programmer jokes!

You're assuming I get regular jokes? Forgot about the course in CS degrees where if you fail to get programmer jokes you can't be a programmer.

<--- feels proud he understood the bread joke

I only chuckled at the bread joke because I got it; I don't think any other interpretation would have been funny..?

The publisher one reminded me of this:

A programmer dies and is sent to hell. A week later Satan meets God and ask him, if they could take the programmer to the heaven. God asks why. Satan replies: "on the first day he slew all the demons with a chainsaw and since then he's been looking for an exit to the next level."

Yo mama's so fat, the recursive function used to calculate her weight caused a stack overflow

Most Java programmers live in Atlantis, because it's below C level.

... it took me a few seconds to figure that one out.

If you still don't get it, think of it as programming code:

while(you_re_out) {
   buy_some_bread();
}

Get it now?

Edit: Oops, I replied to it before I read the other replies, apparently showing code doesn't help. Maybe if I show an example using BASIC?

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Matthew Leverton.

hahaha I'm banned aren't I?

LMAO, love all the jokes. That Board Chow one had me laughing out loud, done that a few time, now I know what to call it (didn't eat it, but definitely shook a meal out I think! )

Yep, it is official, when it comes to programming jokes, I have absolutely no sense of humor. Even after getting the bread joke (granted it had to be explained to me), and reading all of the other ones (only one that made me smirk was the carton of milk and eggs joke), but still thought they were all utterly retarded. I'll stick to George Carlin, Jeff Dunham, etc. for my laughs.

It's okay, everyone's sense of humour is different.

Mine isn't!

That's not something that is learned or conditioned. It's something that you're born with. It's the same thing that makes people naturally good at things like programming and naturally bad at things like people. You can learn to fake your way through things, but you'll always be naturally good at things and struggle with others.

You should have said assembler programmers. Java is much higher level than C.

Yeah, I think he inverted it in the retelling. Perhaps it should be:

"Why are there no Java programmers in the Netherlands?"
"Because it's below.."

Yo mama's such a hoe, they made her undress function a part of Standard C

Not really a joke but these always amuse me:

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{"name":"1732.strip.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/a\/5a4e01cc14cae4555a0de86a2a9ebac8.gif","w":640,"h":199,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/a\/5a4e01cc14cae4555a0de86a2a9ebac8"}

{"name":"tree_swing_development_requirements.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/7\/17dcd48de3f82775b92cf0a5cf97fd6c.jpg","w":800,"h":600,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/7\/17dcd48de3f82775b92cf0a5cf97fd6c"}

Thanks everyone ^[1]

I like the swing one.

The problem with that programmer kid, is that eventually he'll hit an Out of Money exception. This will cause him to abort (i.e. disappear from reality).

GDB on Android is kind of a joke.

Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
The program no longer exists.
(gdb) bt
No stack.

Only it's not funny.

Similar to the bread* joke:

A mother told her programmer son, "Theres one piece of cake and one bun left, have the cake or the bun" - there was nothing left for the mother.

*quite funny the bread joke in that when you tell people who aren't techie they just don't get it and you tell people who are techie you can tell those that don't get it but pretend they do otherwise they'd not be as hard-core as you

I'd gotten the bread joke but the cake/bun one is not to clear to me.

1 OR 2 = 3.
Cake OR bun = cake + bun.

If she'd said cake xor bun, she'd have enjoyed dessert.

I sort of recognize that evaluation. Is there any practical use for that equivalency?

If people spoke logically, English would be quite a bit different.

"Aren't you coming along?"
"No"
"Fine! Sit here for all I care!"
"I said I was coming!"

I guess though with short-cut logic (logical not bitwise), e.g. cake || bun, he would have stopped if cake was true

"Do you want the cake or the bun?"
"YES!"

Walker's logic is why I couldn't get the joke. I like the Arthur's variation!

"Don't give me no bullshit!"
"How much bullshit do you want?"

Adapted from "That 70's Show": A programmer marries. His wife makes him promise not to cheat on her or lie. She comes home one day and finds him in bed with another woman. Infuriated, she reminds him of the promise. He responds " You asked me not to cheat or lie. I did not lie.".

I think that joke's better if you take it out from programming and he says "You said not to cheat or lie. I decided to lie."

"How many Lojban speakers does it take to change a broken light bulb?" - "Twenty-one. One to change the bulb, and twenty to research what kind of bulb emits broken light."

Nice one.

Tried to translate it from French:

"There are 10 type of guys in the world who understand binary. Those who, and those who don't".

Arggghh! There are 10 types of people who understand trinary, those who do, those who don't, and those who've never heard of it.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who regularly have sex.

EDIT: Corrected phrasing.

Leave the "who understand ...". You are giving away the punchline.

There are 10 types of people: those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those who thought this was a binary joke.

What do you call it when a bunch of programmers rub balloons on their heads and string them together?

Yep, quite right, I've just copied Gulls quote and edited it.

@Gideon: static string?

There are 10 type of guys in the world who understand binary.
0: Those who do
1: Those who don't

You mean:

1: Those who don't.
10: Those who do.

There are 10 types of people in the world.
Those who understand binary,
those who don't,
and those who weren't expecting a base 3 joke.

There are two types of a.cc members. Those who have never completed a game project.

Derezo: good one.

Johan have my point ^^

I think Derezo means "11 types of people."

J-Gamer: I would have also accepted "static linking." NEXT: Why'd the programmer's arm never heal?

Derezos joke was what I was trying to remember above, and it's correct.

Those who understand binary, (01)
those who don't, (02)
and those who weren't expecting a base 3 joke. (10)

I can't think of why a programmers arm wouldn't heal without Googling.

Ahaha, screw me. I get it now. Somebody finally tells it the right way, and I miss it.

I got tired of waiting about the programmers arm healing, and I couldn't find the answer on Google.

Another moldy oldie I was reminded of in Coding Horror:

Why do programmers think OCT 31 and DEC 25 are the same day? The question on the face of it is a bit US centric.

EDIT: added the spoiler tags.

They ought to know it

I wouldn't be surprised if half of the people here don't know what the long forms mean. OCT is pretty obsolete.

On the other hand I remember few months ago when working on a school software projects, several mates were quite consfused by me using hex constants

You better know what octal is if you want to do any PHP or C or C++, because it'll bite you otherwise. Quick, what does this print:

$i = '00000010';
printf("%d\n", $i);

That, and UNIX file permissions.

The leading 0 without the 'x' is oct, yes, but they'd learn not to do that then, and hardly anybody uses UNIX file permissions.

What if it's user input? What if you're parsing a user-supplied date, and you can't for some reason use a built-in function for that? Example:

// Parses a date in the format DD-MM-YYYY
function parseDate($dateString) {
   list($day, $month, $year) = explode('-', $dateString);
   $day = (int)$day;
   $month = (int)$month;
   $year = (int)$year;
   // expand two-digit years
   if ($year < 50)
       $year += 2000;
   if ($year < 100)
       $year += 1900;
   return new DateTime("$month/$day/$year");
}

Where's the bug?

I would have checked for leading zeros even in assembler.

Yeah, well, you would. I've seen enough of other people's code to know that many wouldn't, and then they wouldn't know what hit them when '01-05-08' comes out as '5/1/2000', or worse, '09-05-12' becomes '4/30/2012' or something.

All the doctor would give him was an implicit cast.

Oooooohhhhhh! I'd never have guessed that in a million years.

Arthur Kalliokoski wins this thread.

I'm still laughing at his perfectly placed gif.

Also good joke Mr. Weems

I've never used the functions OCT and DEC but I still know what they do. Then again, I seem to be ahead of my age. I've met JavaScripters that still don't know what regexes are.

It should have really been something like 0o732 instead of 0732 to prevent so many n00b mistakes. I use octal often because of \033.

Lately, D has deprecated 0732 in favour of octal!732. While they're at it, they deprecated 1234l in favour of 1234L.

Ooooh nice... you know, there's this guide to writing unmaintainable code out there somewhere, and it suggests, among other things, being creative with l vs. I vs. 1, and 0 vs. O. So you'd have variables named Il1l and l1Ill alongside each other, ideally in a way that would make confusing the two lead to incredibly obscure bugs.

Are you making that up? (int) '08' => 8 in PHP.

And that function is pointless, when you can just do: DateTime::createFromFormat('d-m-y|', '01-05-08'). Of course, that doesn't stop PHP programmers from writing such a function.

I think this one is pretty easy, I made it up last week when my friend and I were trying to think of awful jokes.

"AND, OR, and XOR went to a party, but AND and OR were turned away. Why?"

It was an exclusive party?

Right on the money. Told you it was easy! (and awful!)

An american programmer has heard, to be a real man he must drink a bottle of whiskey with one pull, rape a squaw and kill a grizzly.

So he drunk the whiskey in one pull and then went to the grizzly's cave and entered. After half an hour he came out and asked "And where ist the squaw i should kill?"...

A little help with that one, bitte?

Thanks Arthur. You seem to be familiar with the subject.

I just got déjà vu. I think we had another bad programmer jokes thread a few years back. In any case, I fail to see how the "real man" one applies specifically to programmers. Over all, I'd say these jokes are pretty lame, but I can't do any better...

Mr. Kalliokoski, I got that part. I just don't see the logic error that resulted in his actions.

He simply misunderstood.

Hagar the Horrible: "Hey you guys! Plunder, then burn!"

The bit about it being a programmer makes it seem like that should somehow be relevant, and since it's not, the joke loses what little humour was their anyway.

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Yes, but I find it more annoying to not understand the joke at all.

I reckon Werner was wrong about that. 'Impossible' is a strong word.

It's true that jokes tend to be far more amusing when they are understood without explanation - But "impossible ... to experience the amusement of a joke" overshoots the mark.

Things are only impossible until they're not!