in reply to Computers and Programming

Computers always do what you tell them to do. Which is not necessarily what you want them to do.

Everything went worng, just as foreseen.

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Re: Re: Computers and Programming
by clemburg (Curate) on Mar 21, 2002 at 10:34 UTC 

    > fortune -m 'damned machine'
%% (fortunes)
I really hate this damned machine
I wish that they would sell it.
It never does quite what I want
But only what I tell it.

    [download]

    Christian Lemburg
    Brainbench MVP for Perl
    http://www.brainbench.com

[reply]
[d/l]

      Heh, I wasn't aware of that. I've heard and repeated that statement for more than twenty years. I guess someone was the first to state it, but I've never heard anyone claim to be the origin of the saying.

      Not even 'fortune' has a reference to the originator?

      Everything went worng, just as foreseen.

[reply]
        That quote is the source for my variation when dealing with lusers.

        Luser: This ^%$*ing computer never does what I tell it to do!

        Me: No, it does *EXACTLY* what you tell it to do. That's the problem.

        /\/\averick
        perl -l -e "eval pack('h*','072796e6470272f2c5f2c5166756279636b672');"

[reply]

        Well, there was a similar poem published in "The Reader's Digest" in (if my memory serves me correctly) in 1983. It ran something like this:

        I hate this computer,
            I wish they would sell it
        It doesn't do what I want
            Only what I tell it.
        I expect fortune was updated accordingly.

        o<

[reply]
[d/l]

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