View Full Version : Programming jokes
Spencer E.
17-03-2007, 13:12
Since we're all getting frustated/stressed/excited with our programming, I thought it'd be fun to post some programming jokes to lighten the mood. I'll start off. This one comes from a friend of mine:
if(time == hammer)
stop();
(If anyone doesn't get it, don't be afraid to ask :p )
geeknerd99
17-03-2007, 13:25
Wielding only a mouse and keyboard, living off Ramen and Mountain Dew, our brave hero and his team begins the daunting 6-week siege against the mighty C monster.
It got to the point where I walked in on one guy on my team constantly compiling the same thing over and over again. When I asked him why, he told me, "I love seeing the words "BUILD SUCCEEDED". I'm banking up the number of sucessful builds I have to make up for all the syntax errors I'll get later."
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They'll just say it's a hardware problem.
thegathering
17-03-2007, 16:25
True story: There's a kid in the programming class below us that really looked up to us in terms of style and skill. One day, I decided to search the network drive from another classroom and take a look at this kid's code to see how he was doing.
I start looking through the source and I see variable names: Ben, Pat, Robert, Tsui....
I almost screamed in horror when I realized he was programming using our names as variables!!!!
Talk about creepy. To say the least, we yelled at him for awhile and he no longer makes variable names named after us....
Bomberofdoom
17-03-2007, 18:00
Murphy's Law.
No matter how many times you scream "I've got it now! Last time, it has to work now!!!!" after trying to fix a code you've written for 3 hours after 2 AM in the morning, you'll always get a syntax error and an insanly angry mentor waiting for you to finish.
Oh, and the best part is, that after you fustrastedly(spelled right?) work on the code the whole night till dawn, you're friend comes at 9 AM, takes the keyboard for 2 minutes, mabye does one more fix to what he wrote and the code works.
obviously a true story case. 3 times in a row. Ouch.
Spencer E.
17-03-2007, 18:01
True story: There's a kid in the programming class below us that really looked up to us in terms of style and skill. One day, I decided to search the network drive from another classroom and take a look at this kid's code to see how he was doing.
I start looking through the source and I see variable names: Ben, Pat, Robert, Tsui....
I almost screamed in horror when I realized he was programming using our names as variables!!!!
Talk about creepy. To say the least, we yelled at him for awhile and he no longer makes variable names named after us....
Wow, that is kind of creepy o_O. I'm glad no one looks up to me :D , well most people have to look up to me physically since I've over 6 feet tall, but enough with the technicalities.
Spencer E.
17-03-2007, 18:03
Murphy's Law.
No matter how many times you scream "I've got it now! Last time, it has to work now!!!!" after trying to fix a code you've written for 3 hours after 2 AM in the morning, you'll always get a syntax error and an insanly angry mentor waiting for you to finish.
That sounds very familiar. I hate those late programming nights only to find out it was only a hardware error :ahh:
EricS-Team180
17-03-2007, 19:22
Oh, and the best part is, that after you fustrastedly(spelled right?) work on the code the whole night till dawn, you're friend comes at 9 AM, takes the keyboard for 2 minutes, mabye does one more fix to what he wrote and the code works.
obviously a true story case. 3 times in a row. Ouch.
which reminded me of:
C's motto: who cares what it means? I just compile it!
- The Top 10 Ways to get screwed by the "C" programming language (#9) :p
True story: There's a kid in the programming class below us that really looked up to us in terms of style and skill. One day, I decided to search the network drive from another classroom and take a look at this kid's code to see how he was doing.
I start looking through the source and I see variable names: Ben, Pat, Robert, Tsui....
I almost screamed in horror when I realized he was programming using our names as variables!!!!
Talk about creepy. To say the least, we yelled at him for awhile and he no longer makes variable names named after us....
I had a friend who named a counter that went from 1-10, "midget". Needless to say the teacher got mad because it isnt a meaningful name and she thought it was inappropriate.
kevin.li.rit
17-03-2007, 19:44
The robot's too heavy, take out some code.
meatmanek
17-03-2007, 20:18
A few mentors from another team came to our pits today and were asking about how our pickup mechanism works.
Me: "This wheel spins and causes the tube to rotate up. When the tube hits this switch, the program opens up the grabber and raises the elevator to the selected height. Then when the driver gets to the goal, this IR sensor..."
Other team's mentor: "Hey, did you hear that word he used? Sensor!"
efoote868
17-03-2007, 20:57
(random guy at ms) Mr. Gates, Mr. Gates, It Compiled!!!
(gates) Ship it!
(whenever our code compiles without a syntax error, thats the first thing I say)
----
"It Works" = 'A' :)
mtaman02
17-03-2007, 21:05
Everything on this robot needs to lose weight, I don't care what you gotta do to get it off just lose the weight, start with the code and work your way back to the hardware.
Doug Leppard
17-03-2007, 21:55
You may have to be an assembly level programmer to appreciate this. This all has to do with registers.
A programmer's cheer:
Shift to the left
Shift to the right
push down
pop up
byte byte byte
What do computers eat for a snack?
Computer chips! :] (so its a bad joke.... whatever)
Fixing hardware issues in software... like for instance one motor not having any set screws on the elevator.... or the gear ratio on the traction motors being to fast to be controlled.... priceless! :ahh:
-q
JBotAlan
17-03-2007, 22:35
[not really a joke, but you might appreciate this]
I never could figure out why my auton never worked freshman year; I was just learning C and had written this:
if (counter = 5) {
pwm01 = 254;
pwm02 = 254;
counter = counter + 1;
}
I told the drive guys that "yeah, it would be fine and work"...needless to say the robot took off and smashed into the other side of the field...[/notajoke]
-------------
Insults:
Go put do loops in your slow loop! (crashes the processor)
Go plug your computer into the tether port! (explodes the system board)
I'm working on some more, so I'll probably post again, but there's the ones I've got for now.
End Post (VB reference)
if(1==1)
{
actNormal();
}
else
{
temp = black;
black = white;
white = temp;
temp = up;
up = down;
down = temp;
/*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*/
//correcting for rip in space time
}
ok heres a good one.
2 programmers are changing a light bulb. programmer #1 takes out the light bulb then programmer #2 puts in the replacement light bulb. As he does this programmer #1 starts to get an angry look on his face . . programmer #2 stops then says " ohh sorry off by one error".
Eldarion
17-03-2007, 23:38
[To a mentor]
In theory, this fix should work great!
[robot entangles arm in rack at full speed]
Oops. ;)
"We need to save weight. Take out all the white space"
"Just one small change and it will work perfectly."
"That wasn't supposed to do that."
One of our programmers was working for hours on our arm code. He couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I looked over the code, put it in, turned off the safety switch.... it worked fine.
Thats why you need more then one programmer. :rolleyes:
ChrisMcK2186
18-03-2007, 20:31
My programmers, not that I know the slightest thing about the wonderful world of C, were talking about the code in the kind of tones that implie one intends to rearrange the others face, so I step in. It seems that the first angry one was unsatisfied with out auton. code. The first practice match we dropped the arm and ran at the other alliance full speed like jousting, hit the wall with a sickening crunch and grinds to a halt. The second programmer, the one who made the code, is very confused by its performance, swearing that he made it correctly. They crack open the code and see that infact it is an open ended code with no stop to the movement!:yikes: The replace it with a code that makes it spin in circles.
Chris
Andrew Morris
18-03-2007, 20:42
So after working for an entire day on our team's auton code with no success I had finally made the simplest auton yet: shift to high gear and floor it in reverse. At the start of the match the robot turns a complete circle then hits the alliance wall and stops. The entire team shooting me angry glances I hurry to the pits to find the error. One mentor in particular states that the robot must have functioned properly and it was my(the caode's) fault. When the robot comes back the mentor takes one look at the transmission, swears, and apologizes. And just once I could say, "I told you so!"
DonRotolo
18-03-2007, 20:51
The robot's too heavy, take out some code.
Everything on this robot needs to lose weight, I don't care what you gotta do to get it off just lose the weight, start with the code and work your way back to the hardware.
We actually had one parent who was told stuff like this and completely believed it. Actually, (person) believed that only the ones weighed something, the zeros had no weight. Of course, the lead programmer then showed the parent that I was wrong, only the zeros had weight, not the ones...
True.
Don
triggerhappy336
18-03-2007, 20:55
dy/dx = robot go foward
The programmer's all found that humorous. I found it as a scary nightmare.
Uberbots
18-03-2007, 21:05
some kid dropped an old sensor in some salsa... and i just laughed.
it is also quite humorous to define aliases for the IFI functions...
putdata -> cheese
getdata -> explode
autonomous_mode -> special_mode_to_run_annoying_drivers_over
only a programmer would do this, i suppose
some kid dropped an old sensor in some salsa... and i just laughed.
I dropped our label maker in a bowl of Red Beans and Rice. The amazing part is that I got it working after diner like it was new!
Athleticgirl389
18-03-2007, 21:38
The robot's too heavy, take out some code.
Our team used that A LOT this year lol. Also, "Nope, we're still over weight... put in the lighter code.'"
1. This one is probably all too common:
visitor/sponsor/etc: "Hi, John, nice to meet you. I saw the electrica, mechanical, (etc...) teams, where is the rest of the programming team?"
2. The ever popular:
QUICK! Re-enable the disable switch!
3. I was the play-by-play commentator at the state VEX Championship, where, in the finals, I found myself saying:
"That was quite a depressing autonomous period: we just saw four robots sit and waste millions of microprocessor cycles, contributing to organizational entropy in the universe without actually doing any work!"
Half the people laughed because they had no idea, and the other half laughed because they knew exactly what I was saying.
Alan Anderson
18-03-2007, 23:17
...When the robot comes back the mentor takes one look at the transmission, swears, and apologizes.
Our 2004 'bot developed a transmission issue that only showed up at high speed in reverse with an actual load on the wheels. It wasn't apparent with the robot "up on blocks" in the pit. It happened that our autonomous routine was to go high speed in reverse. It started drifting seriously to one side, but things seemed fine when under operator control. I was the only real programmer on the team at the competition, so it fell to me to correct the problem. I put in some "go straight" code to increase power to the slower side and decrease power to the faster side until the left and right wheel rotation sensors matched. The robot then went straight in autonomous, but only for a foot or two before stopping completely.
It took several disappointing matches and lots of testing on the floor with a very long tether cable before we discovered that the software was doing exactly what we asked it to, and the trouble was with the hardware (a gear was riding up out of place and disengaging with its partner). I think the final clue was when the driver complained about not being able to turn one direction in reverse.
That's about the time I started putting in "defensive diagnostics" so I could easily demonstrate that the code was operating properly, and could quickly determine when undesired operation was due to disconnected wiring or misbehaving mechanisms.
whytheheckme
18-03-2007, 23:24
"That was quite a depressing autonomous period: we just saw four robots sit and waste millions of microprocessor cycles, contributing to organizational entropy in the universe without actually doing any work!"
As opposed to the really useful work that the robot does during the rest of the game?:p
Jacob
JBotAlan
18-03-2007, 23:43
Some more:
My autonomous updating function is named AUT_DoScaryStuff().
------------------
I am the only person on the controls team that isn't a newbie. The newbies were putting together this year's control board, and (name omitted) said he was finished. As he plugged in the battery, a large spark jumped from the terminal, and nothing powered up. We all got an enormous sinking feeling...but it was time to call it a night, and we left.
At the next meeting, I found myself using a multimeter to check the resistance of each Victor, Spike, and the RC to see if anything was shorted. I re-checked every wire very painstakingly, but found no fault. I tested each Victor with our bench power supply. Still no dice. I looked over the circuit breaker, testing conductivity all the way through. I could not find anything anywhere that would indicate what the heck was going on. Finally, I inspected the battery we were using. The connection seemed okay; red went to the + side of the battery like it should...but what I saw on the other side was quite humorous, though it coaxed a few "bad words" out of me at the time: the Anderson pair that one of the newbies put together had red running into - and black running into +; when it was plugged in, + went to - and - went to +, causing a large amount of current to be drawn, every breaker to pop, and a large spark to jump off the contact when plugged in.
The punchline?
This is the second time I've done this. :mad:
Always, always check the simple things first! Otherwise you'll feel dumb when your problem isn't in fact a bad Victor, but really just a reverse-polarity battery.
--as a side note, I learned that day that Anderson pairs can be taken apart if necessary. You learn something every day, whether you like it or not...:D
King of reverse-polarity,
JBot
Adamskiy
19-03-2007, 00:41
We used a USB chicklet ($150) this year with our Xbox 360 controller, which as some of you may know takes up to a 9V DC input (the chicklet, I mean). We got it out one day and were looking through the manual when one of the newbies took it upon himself to power it up. Luckily I stopped him, with half an inch to spare, from plugging it into a 24V DC power supply he found laying around.
In our code this year, one of the students had written to functions for testing/prototype purposes, and named them "ROFLMAO" and "ROFLMAO2"....but we then ended up using them in the final code.
As opposed to the really useful work that the robot does during the rest of the game?
The inspirational power of seeing robots move "automagically" is underestimated. Sure, the moving around that they do isn't of immediate benefit to anyone. But I'd say it's worth it if just one small child is inspired to become an engineer.
To legitimize this post, I guess I should include more jokes.
while(!center) {
lick();
licks++;
}and
$ chown -r us ./yourbase
Not quite programming, but software related:
After finishing the last of our scouting input, we tried to check and make sure our information was correct. The database showed that we only had 39 forms filled in instead of 300+!:eek: It was about 11:00 at night and we had to wake up 2 mentors because no one could remember how to do a System Restore. I said "I give up! I'm done with computers! I'm going to bed!" About 2 minutes later, I came back to the room. "OK, I'm done being done with computers. What's wrong?"
It turned out that the information was all still there and that we had it set under a filter of some sort.:D
Some more:
--as a side note, I learned that day that Anderson pairs can be taken apart if necessary. You learn something every day, whether you like it or not...:D
As another side note, I've been wanting to know how to do this for quite some time.....
And as for jokes, I still like my signature and title.
thegathering
19-03-2007, 17:28
$ chown -r us ./yourbase
I have a "chown -r us ./base" shirt from Jinx that I wear to school once a week ^_^
esquared
19-03-2007, 17:28
Question: What's a pirate's favorite variable? (I'll leave the answer blank so a few people have a chance to guess)
Answer:
Question: What's a pirate's favorite variable? (I'll leave the answer blank so a few people have a chance to guess)
Answer:
An arg?
ChrisMcK2186
19-03-2007, 18:12
please pardon the terrible coding, I can't even get matlab to work, so I apologize.
if(night==sleep)
disp("off season")
elseif(night==FRC)
disp("6 weeks left")
heres another I'll try
if(input=hammer)
then(hardwareprob.)
if(input=code)
then(typelikecrazy)
elseif
then(getmorementors)
Chris
SgtMillhouse648
19-03-2007, 19:46
Our team used that A LOT this year lol. Also, "Nope, we're still over weight... put in the lighter code.'"
With our "origional" autonomous, we had over 1000 lines of code. When the robot was overweight one of the kids wanted us to lighten the code.
With the VEX USB to serial adapter, we figured up that we spent more time downloading code than the time we spent building the robot. :ahh: With about 2 minutes per download, it starts to add up
sonicx059
19-03-2007, 20:07
Everything on this robot needs to lose weight, I don't care what you gotta do to get it off just lose the weight, start with the code and work your way back to the hardware.
WEll our robot was barly 70lbs and when they asked for somthing else in the code either me or marteal did and the driver still complained so we just started to blame it on human error.
Kuru Oujou
19-03-2007, 20:24
Mentor: "We need to save weight more than ever this year."
Programmer: "Don't worry, we are using the smallest font possible."
Astronouth7303
20-03-2007, 17:24
That's about the time I started putting in "defensive diagnostics" so I could easily demonstrate that the code was operating properly, and could quickly determine when undesired operation was due to disconnected wiring or misbehaving mechanisms.
I've done this since I started. The dashboard is invaluable for this. A custom one is especially handy, since you can display just what's needed in an understandable fashion.
I'll have to remember that term, too. "Defensive diagnostics." It's usually not a code problem, but it doesn't hurt to check.
Oh, the joke.
meal = ["spam"]*20 + ["eggs"]
(It's a Python thing. Move along.)
ChrisMcK2186
20-03-2007, 17:27
are you sure you wouldn't like meal=["spam"]*20-["eggs"]+["spam"]?
My autonomous updating function is named AUT_DoScaryStuff().
My roommate and I are considering patenting* the idea that we call "negative programming". People always say that computers only do exactly what you tell them to, but we've smashed that paradigm and moved on to telling it what not to do. We competed in the Mobot competition at Carnegie Mellon last year, which is essentially an outdoor line-tracking contest. Our small-wheeled robot was having some trouble getting over the bigger cracks in the sidewalk. There's also a portion of the course where the line forks and crosses over itself, and you have to make some decisions. Functions for handling these two problems were respectively named dont_get_stuck() and dont_cross(). You call dont_get_stuck(), and it doesn't get stuck. Good robot.
* I am not actually advocating software patents.
the IT director at my high school said that the next version of my green team website should be optimized for lynx (its an old Unix web browser run from command line) i found this quite funny as it is like the absolute opposite of modern day browsers as it has no styles and no images.
/forest
Salik Syed
21-03-2007, 17:26
Murphy's Law.
No matter how many times you scream "I've got it now! Last time, it has to work now!!!!" after trying to fix a code you've written for 3 hours after 2 AM in the morning, you'll always get a syntax error and an insanly angry mentor waiting for you to finish.
Actually looking back, I liked the days when the worse problems I had were syntax. :D
the IT director at my high school said that the next version of my green team website should be optimized for lynx (its an old Unix web browser run from command line) i found this quite funny as it is like the absolute opposite of modern day browsers as it has no styles and no images.
/forest
I'd agree with him.. Lynx is still used today, and it is probably the most popular CLI browser in the world. Compatibility is a great thing.
the IT director at my high school said that the next version of my green team website should be optimized for lynx (its an old Unix web browser run from command line) i found this quite funny as it is like the absolute opposite of modern day browsers as it has no styles and no images.
/forest
I wouldn't really call that a joke, usually sites that look good in lynx and have layout to be viewed in non textbased browsers often load very quickly and generally look better. Its more a of a challenge.
Lynx is so out of date any more except for testing. If you actually want to browse in a console, I recommend ELinks (http://elinks.or.cz/). It supports for example, CSS, XTerm mouse support, 256 colors, and JavaScript.
If you want to get really fancy with text-mode browsers, try links-hacked :-P It basically attempts to take the text-mode out of "text-mode browser" by using it's own graphics driver.
lukevanoort
21-03-2007, 18:08
the IT director at my high school said that the next version of my green team website should be optimized for lynx (its an old Unix web browser run from command line) i found this quite funny as it is like the absolute opposite of modern day browsers as it has no styles and no images.
/forest
Sites that can be viewed in Lynx also tend to be more accessible to folks with disabilities as well. (text readers for the blind, for example) Check out the W3C Web accessibility guidelines, you'll notice that many of its requirements requirements are similar to things needed to be able to view websites in Lynx.
PS I'd recommend that every FIRST team's webmaster try to at least conform to W3C Web Accessibility Level A standards, and AA or AAA if you can, although those standards are significantly harder to meet.
thanks for the feedback
after i get the initial site up im going to make a text based one for dial up users, and to meet some of the accessibility standards, also i am seeing how challenging it would be to make a version that can be viewed on mobile devices.
i have my summer all figured out lol :ahh:
/forest
hipsterjr
21-03-2007, 18:58
our programers programed the auton with both sides of the drive train motors turning the same way. Needless to say team 342's dancing auton was born!:yikes:
http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2007/movies/fl/fl_031.wmv
esquared
22-03-2007, 11:13
Question: What's a pirate's favorite variable? (I'll leave the answer blank so a few people have a chance to guess)
Answer:
charrrrr starrrrr arrrrrrg (aka char * arg).
Awful I know ;)
So the jokes have digressed into funny stories. Here's one of mine.
Last year our autonomous code drove the bot to the middle of the field, where it spun in circles really fast. It made the announcer's job easy: "360 is doing 360s!". Many people thought it was misbehaving, but really it was to hit and turn light-seeking shooters way off their path. In the finals, there was a bot that drove straight up to the low goal and dumped 10 balls. I just took out "254-" in order to drive the robot straight, which with a little alignment and a speed increase shot us across the field and blocked the goal.
Somebody came up to me afterwards and said "Hey! I see you fixed the autonomous!" When really it had been working just as I'd wanted all along.
I recall the first time we enabled our autonomous last year. We ran it on the practice field, and it seemed to work alright. But somehow, when we brougt it out on the field, all it did was drive out toward the goal, until in the middle of the field, and spin in circles, while also shooting balls randomly into the crowd. Got quite a few laughs.
If our arm sprocket hadn't kept breaking this year, we were going to just drive out into the field and give the crowd a "wave" with our arm.
Bharat Nain
22-03-2007, 23:20
Once upon a time, I activated autonomous mode.. and my laptop flies at 14.4ft/sec...
A new hard drive was required.
We had an autonomous bug last year at Lonestar. It was our first test with our autonomous on practice day, and it basically ran straight forward and smacked the side of the playing field and I think it broke the plexiglass. It was pretty ammusing and the robot was unharmed, and it got quite a few laughs. Sounds just like Lamont-a-bot.
dragoonex
24-03-2007, 00:06
We had an autonomous bug last year where we forgot to set our autonomous done flag which got us stuck in an infinite loop, so it kept driving till it hit a wall... over and over again... kind of like pong. Funnily enough, this worked real well and other teams were asking us for this "feature."
bear24rw
24-03-2007, 10:30
Once upon a time, I activated autonomous mode.. and my laptop flies at 14.4ft/sec...
A new hard drive was required.
lol, that is why we NEVER screw in the cables.. we also had a mentor rip out the teather port on last years RC because it was screwed
Adamskiy
24-03-2007, 15:59
The only cables we screw in are the ones for the radio transmitter and reciever, simply because it's a waste of time and effort for all other cables :)
The RS232 Port in our laptop is so loose, we can't screw it in anymore because the screw don't reach.
JBotAlan
25-03-2007, 20:36
Robots make you do strange things. I never thought I would ever find myself kicking a robot while saying (directly to the robot, of course) "You are a piece of junk!"
Or saying "That way, you stupid robot!"
Or saying "What the heck are you doing?"
Too many late nights...:D
The team has just learned to ignore me when I appear incoherent.
Duncan Macdonald
25-03-2007, 20:57
Not being a programmer I have received answers to questions in code form.
while(true)
no
Robots make you do strange things. I never thought I would ever find myself kicking a robot while saying (directly to the robot, of course) "You are a piece of junk!"
Or saying "That way, you stupid robot!"
Or saying "What the heck are you doing?"
Too many late nights...:D
The team has just learned to ignore me when I appear incoherent.
I'll stick to tackling our robot.
Kingofl337
25-03-2007, 21:40
I've been known to do this as well.
Robots make you do strange things. I never thought I would ever find myself kicking a robot while saying (directly to the robot, of course) "You are a piece of junk!"
Or saying "That way, you stupid robot!"
Or saying "What the heck are you doing?"
Too many late nights...:D
The team has just learned to ignore me when I appear incoherent.
LightWaves1636
25-03-2007, 21:42
Robots make you do strange things. I never thought I would ever find myself kicking a robot while saying (directly to the robot, of course) "You are a piece of junk!"
Or saying "That way, you stupid robot!"
Or saying "What the heck are you doing?"
Too many late nights...:D
The team has just learned to ignore me when I appear incoherent.
LOL, some of the late nights, one of our mechanics would have a conversation with gripper, and then another would talk to a nut on the chassis.
Alexa Stott
25-03-2007, 21:47
lol, that is why we NEVER screw in the cables.. we also had a mentor rip out the teather port on last years RC because it was screwed
That actually happened to us this year. Someone drove the robot and forgot to unplug the tether cable. There were a few loose connections, but we fixed them before ship.
The year before my rookie year, the "programming team" took turns sitting on the robot with the OI board (joysticks etc) tethered. They found that rallying around the room worked better if they mounted empty water bottles all around the robot for bumpers.
This year, if it was ever past 11:30 pm or so, I would somehow always end up with a ringer around my neck, pacing around the room thinking about my latest coding problem.
LordTalps
26-03-2007, 22:31
This year, if it was ever past 11:30 pm or so, I would somehow always end up with a ringer around my neck, pacing around the room thinking about my latest coding problem.
I'm happy I'm not the only one! I've gotten so many looks before that I'm crazy or insane, because I'll do odd things like that. Grab a ringer, rotate it on the floor. Pick up a chair and hold it upside down in the air. Tap any random object that happens to be in my hand at the time.
Of course, the programming team entirely gets yelled at for our brainstorming sessions, which consist of us talking about ideas in a hackysack circle. "Start doing some work!" "We are!" "Your software's not working!" "It's a hardware problem!"
EricVanWyk
26-03-2007, 23:54
The first time I taught programming for FIRST, I took a very hands-off/trust-the-student approach. I have tried to maintain that approach over the years, but now I insist that they put the robot up before they put code in.
It was early in the build season, and the new programmers were just getting to learn the system. As practice, I asked them to put a low pass filter on the motor outputs and then experiment with different parameters.
At one point, the parameter put the low passes' knee at .05Hz. At the same time, the variables were accidentally being initialized to all 0 (or was it all 254?). The result was that the robot would turn on, spin, charge.
Without fail, it charged me. It did not matter where I was, it would always find me and hit me. Fortunately, the robot had a few really nice foot/hand holds. I would jump on and hit the main breaker before it hit the wall.
XxRonnie393xX
12-04-2007, 13:08
true story: when we were revising last years robot code. we watched cops and wrote down all the code words they use and we used those in our code our mentor was looking over it and hes gets to the equation pot+driving=jail. Never seen and indians face turn read before but i did that day
if autonomous = success{
apocalypse();
}
standard team 1989 coding ;)
Vashts6583
12-04-2007, 21:59
I'm reminded of my 2006 autonomous code. In 2005, we had the senior class' valedic. doing our software (If anyone saw Moonraker's autonomous, you can tell how good he was.) Well, 2006 was my first year by myself, so I thought I'd try some basic autonomous. We used it in only one match, and rammed into our alliance partner so hard that the robot fell on its side,. and stayed there the rest of the match. We joked afterwards that "Well, they're better than us in everything else (mainly sports), but they can't survive our robot." Needless to say, i went up and apologized after the match.
Sorry, 1727.
FunkyRatDemon
13-04-2007, 01:58
Marketing Team=Self Destruct
I hate you guys...(lucky we didn't finish on time)
Syntax Domain
17-04-2007, 06:07
there are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who know binary
and those who don't.
Monochron
17-04-2007, 15:18
Well as it seems this has gone to just programming stories, I'll share one of my own.
This year we decided not to have an autonomous.....I'm not sure why.
Our programmers were absent for a lot of meetings so that might have a lot to do with it.
However, sometime our robot would spontaneously drive backwards. We don't know why and we occasionally lined up facing our wall. We would end up speeding across the field and then having to come all the way back. Sometimes we would just twitch in place a few times or grind up against the wall.
It was kind of scary because we didn't know what caused it, it only happened occasionally, and we're pretty sure we never touched the auton programming....
However, sometime our robot would spontaneously drive backwards. We don't know why and we occasionally lined up facing our wall.
Our [other] programmer switched around some of the autonomous code, and one match he drove straight backwards (full speed) into the alliance wall. The bot then drove forward, and repeated. Needless to say, the drivers were rather 'shaken' :p (There's my cheesy pun for the day).
We did get something right...our autonomous scored one time. And one time was enough for me, considering we were doing it blindly (no room for a camera). :cool:
swamp_child
18-04-2007, 09:01
No wonder Autonomous doesnt work, our robot is full of bugs!!
this was refering to actual bugs, anyone who went to the FL regional knows what im talking about
Loki1989
20-11-2007, 19:29
Wielding only a mouse and keyboard, living off Ramen and Mountain Dew, our brave hero and his team begins the daunting 6-week siege against the mighty C monster.
It got to the point where I walked in on one guy on my team constantly compiling the same thing over and over again. When I asked him why, he told me, "I love seeing the words "BUILD SUCCEEDED". I'm banking up the number of sucessful builds I have to make up for all the syntax errors I'll get later."
This is so true
alex1699
20-11-2007, 19:33
they put me never programed a robot of this size and power to be head programer so know i need to learn to program my thrid year hmmm snap
basicxman
20-11-2007, 20:53
That sounds very familiar. I hate those late programming nights only to find out it was only a hardware error :ahh:
i got a speech synthesizer and started to program it, it tried for months and then fianally realized i had to set the sda pin to high...it didnt show that in the schematic!:mad:
artdutra04
21-11-2007, 01:23
We should make a LOLCODE to hex compiler. I so want to write programs like this:
HAI
CAN HAS API.H?
PLZ OPEN FILE MAIN.C
AWSUM THX
I HAS A VAR PWM_1 = 127
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!1
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 254? KTHX
VISIBLE "ROBOT CAT CANNOT GO PAST 254"
IM OUTTA UR LOOP
O NOES
VISIBLE "COMPILER CAT IS NOT AMUSED"
KTHXBYE
:p
We should make a LOLCODE to hex compiler. I so want to write programs like this:
HAI
CAN HAS API.H?
PLZ OPEN FILE MAIN.C
AWSUM THX
I HAS A VAR PWM_1 = 127
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!1
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 254? KTHX
VISIBLE "ROBOT CAT CANNOT GO PAST 254"
IM OUTTA UR LOOP
O NOES
VISIBLE "COMPILER CAT IS NOT AMUSED"
KTHXBYE
:p
I am in favor of this, and will do anything in my power to assist in the creation of a LOLCODE compiler for FIRST.
My favorite programming joke: (Shamelessly stolen from a sig here on CD, sorry I don't remember your name!)
If it's falling apart, it's a mechanical problem.
If it's spewing magic smoke, it's an electrical problem.
If it's rampaging around destroying things, THEN it's a programming problem.
hipsterjr
23-11-2007, 10:30
How to shoot yourself in the foot
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."
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 (compiled)
You shoot yourself in the foot with a BB using a SCUD missile launcher.
Visual Basic
You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.
Java
You locate the Gun class, but discover that the Bullet class is abstract, so you extend it and write the missing part of the implementation. Then you implement the ShootAble interface for your foot, and recompile the Foot class. The interface lets the bullet call the doDamage method on the Foot, so the Foot can damage itself in the most effective way. Now you run the program, and call the doShoot method on the instance of the Gun class. First the Gun creates an instance of Bullet, which calls the doFire method on the Gun. The Gun calls the hit(Bullet) method on the Foot, and the instance of Bullet is passed to the Foot. But this causes an IllegalHitByBullet exception to be thrown, and you die.
Apple System 7
Double click the gun icon and a window giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small bomb appears with note "Error of Type 1 has occurred."
Windows 3.1
Double click the gun icon and wait. Eventually a window opens giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small box appears with note "Unable to open Shoot.dll, check that path is correct."
Windows 95
Your gun is not compatible with this OS and you must buy an upgrade and install it before you can continue. Then you will be informed that you don't have enough memory.
CP/M
I remember when shooting yourself in the foot with a BB gun was a big deal.
DOS
You finally found the gun, but can't locate the file with the foot for the life of you.
MSDOS
You shoot yourself in the foot, but can unshoot yourself with add-on software.:D
ctorloey
23-11-2007, 15:57
task main()
{
if (robot == working)
{Programmers = happy
}
else
Programmers = sad, depressed, unhappy
}
save save compile
I got one that my programming mentor told me:
Question: How are Halloween and Christmas alike?
Answer: They happen on the same day.
Does any one get this?
It is with the decimal number system and the octal number system. when you convert 31 (which is the date of Halloween) from octal to decimal it is 25 (which is the date of Christmas). :p
Question: How are Halloween and Christmas alike?
Answer: They happen on the same day.
Does any one get this?
It is with the decimal number system and the octal number system. when you convert 31 (which is the date of Halloween) from octal to decimal it is 25 (which is the date of Christmas). :p
I heard this one not too long ago myself, I was the only one in the group that got it right away as we just learn octal in class not too long ago :D
Its java, but I couldn't resist adding my favorite function
public int getRandom(int range){
return 4;
}
Back in 2005, during Triple Play, our head programmer was supposed to make a code for the bot to move for a second or two then stop. So we load the code into the bot at the last minute and put it on the field in one of the outer positions. The second the match starts, the robot speeds away across the field. Luckily, the robot's drivetrain was poorly constructed, so it arced away from ramming the opponent at full speed and instead hit one of the corner goals so hard, it knocked off the hanging tetra, scoring points for the opposing alliance! Long story short, infinite loops are bad.
Tottanka
24-11-2007, 13:38
Our Aim High robot had a wish to kill us all.
The night before ship, we were fixing our auto mode.
The robot starts the auto, drives towards the goal, camera sees the light, bot turns to the drivers direction (which is exactly the opposite direction of the goal) and shoots the drivers with poofs.
after a fix, the bot worked well for a while.
Another test a few minutes later (wanted to make the auto quicker). The bot goes to the goal, spins to our direction drives a bit forward charging us. We see that it's shooter mechanism is on, and it's gonna start shooting balls soon. We all duck, in order to avoid te coming balls, when suddenly the robot moves its cannon down, exactly with us ducking. After a few checks we realized why he did it. Someone put the goal in the auto at a height of 1 meter instead of 2.
We also had a window in our gym, where we tested auto. the window, apparently, reflected the green light, and one time the bot got the window as its target. By the time we disabled the bot, it already broke the window witha poof.
whitetiger0990
24-11-2007, 18:49
Its java, but I couldn't resist adding my favorite function
public int getRandom(int range){
return 4;
}
xkcd (http://xkcd.com/221/), I love you so. =D
Tottanka
27-11-2007, 21:40
a programmer was found dead in the shower. After some investigation the cause of death was revealed.
He simply followed the instructions of the shampoo.
1. wet your hair
2. put the shampoo on it
3. rub it
4 wash your head
5. repeat ...
there are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who know binary
and those who don't.
I love that cartoon.
Here's another joke:
The Best Programmer
Jesus and satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer.
This goes on for a few hours until they come to an agreement to hold a contest, with God as the judge. They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously, lines of code streaming up the screen, for several hours straight.
Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks satan to show what he has come up with. satan is visibly upset, and cries, ...I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out."
...Very well, then, says God, ..."let us see if Jesus fared any better."
Jesus enters a command, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers. Satan is astonished. He stutters, ...B-b-but how?! I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?"
God chuckles, ..."Everybody knows ........ Jesus saves."
slavik262
02-12-2007, 00:06
More of a visual joke than anything because I got bored in GIMP, but
he won't go away! (click for full res.)
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8994/mplabst6.png (http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8858/mplabwl4.png)
basicxman
02-12-2007, 12:19
i am so glad they took Mr. Clippy out of microsoft office in the new version
has anyone seen family guy when stewies taking over the world and the paperclip asks him if he needs help? that was hilarious!
Tottanka
02-12-2007, 12:44
i am so glad they took Mr. Clippy out of microsoft office in the new version
has anyone seen family guy when stewies taking over the world and the paperclip asks him if he needs help? that was hilarious!
LOL yea!
I cried when it happened!
slavik262
02-12-2007, 14:08
Stewie: "Stupid paperclip! Nobody likes you anyways!"
Romeo1351
02-12-2007, 15:57
We also had a window in our gym, where we tested auto. the window, apparently, reflected the green light, and one time the bot got the window as its target. By the time we disabled the bot, it already broke the window witha poof.
Your robot broke a window with a poof ball??? How powerful is your shooter? :eek:
Tottanka
02-12-2007, 18:28
Your robot broke a window with a poof ball??? How powerful is your shooter? :eek:
acutally, it's the window that was lame =]
slavik262
03-12-2007, 17:02
http://ew.xidus.net/Web_Site/c-comic.jpg
Salik Syed
09-12-2007, 15:18
Haha, I know the person who designed/consulted on the paper clip (he's a professor at Stanford). Apparently Microsoft listened to about 2% of his advice and that's why it turned out so badly.
Haha, I know the person who designed/consulted on the paper clip (he's a professor at Stanford). Apparently Microsoft listened to about 2% of his advice and that's why it turned out so badly.
Maybe he lacked the proper people skills. Many a great idea go mutiliated or unknown because someone doesn't speak up enough or that someone lacks the insight into how to be pushy enough to make the idea become a success.
(Java-C-MPLab pseudo-goullash code)
int rand = Math.rand() * 127;
int pos_neg = Math.rand;
if(pos_neg > 0.5)
pos_neg = 1;
else
pos_neg = -1;
//Drive Motors
pwm_04=pwm_05=(rand + 127);
pwm_06=pwm_07=(rand * pos_neg + 127);
//Arm
pwm_08=255; //Arms up!
pwm_09=(rand/2*pos_neg + 127); //Wavy hands
This isn't a joke; this will be our autonomous algorithm next year if our students don't come up with anything to do in autonomous. Students be warned!
artdutra04
10-12-2007, 12:14
Maybe he lacked the proper people skills. Many a great idea go mutiliated or unknown because someone doesn't speak up enough or that someone lacks the insight into how to be pushy enough to make the idea become a success.
(Java-C-MPLab pseudo-goullash code)
int rand = Math.rand() * 127;
int pos_neg = Math.rand;
if(pos_neg > 0.5)
pos_neg = 1;
else
pos_neg = -1;
//Drive Motors
pwm_04=pwm_05=(rand + 127);
pwm_06=pwm_07=(rand * pos_neg + 127);
//Arm
pwm_08=255; //Arms up!
pwm_09=(rand/2*pos_neg + 127); //Wavy hands
This isn't a joke; this will be our autonomous algorithm next year if our students don't come up with anything to do in autonomous. Students be warned!The only downside to this algorithm is that there is no rand() function of any kind on our controller. :)
The best way I've found to generate "random" numbers on Vex/FRC controllers is to start a timer at the beginning of your program, and whenever you need a random number get the modulus of the timer value when divided by a number of your choice.
The only downside to this algorithm is that there is no rand() function of any kind on our controller. :)
The best way I've found to generate "random" numbers on Vex/FRC controllers is to start a timer at the beginning of your program, and whenever you need a random number get the modulus of the timer value when divided by a number of your choice.
Well, problem solved. The algorithm stands!
Laaba 80
11-12-2007, 19:00
Our teams first year we were trying to get the camera to work. It did everything except what we told it to do. We were just about to stop for the night when one of our mentors walks by and the camera starts moving. We have him walk by again, and it moves again. We coulnd never get the camera to track the green light that year, but we managed to successfully track our mentors bald spot:)
whytheheckme
18-12-2007, 23:39
Interactive real time 100fps 3D reality is discovered by a programmer who went for a walk.
slavik262
19-12-2007, 00:21
It probably requires DirectX 10 though. No way I could run that "Reality" engine :D
whytheheckme
19-12-2007, 12:52
i am so glad they took Mr. Clippy out of microsoft office in the new version
has anyone seen family guy when stewies taking over the world and the paperclip asks him if he needs help? that was hilarious!
I just found the episode online, and took the screenshot.
http://www.uhsserobotics.com/paperclip.png
:p
Jacob
Salik Syed
20-12-2007, 04:17
The only downside to this algorithm is that there is no rand() function of any kind on our controller. :)
The best way I've found to generate "random" numbers on Vex/FRC controllers is to start a timer at the beginning of your program, and whenever you need a random number get the modulus of the timer value when divided by a number of your choice.
That is a pretty bad idea because you are bound to get high periodicity given this method if you need to generate random numbers sequentially.
a really simple way of doing it is to use a LCG (Linear Congruential Generator ... this is what the lcg_value function in php does)
X.0 is your seed
X.n+1 = (a*X.n + c) mod m
wikipedia suggests:
a = 1664525, c = 1013904223, m = 232
this is *still* not a great way to generate random numbers if you are doing simulations, but as far as FIRST applications go it should be pretty sufficient.
Salik Syed
20-12-2007, 04:22
Maybe he lacked the proper people skills. Many a great idea go mutiliated or unknown because someone doesn't speak up enough or that someone lacks the insight into how to be pushy enough to make the idea become a success.
(Java-C-MPLab pseudo-goullash code)
int rand = Math.rand() * 127;
int pos_neg = Math.rand;
if(pos_neg > 0.5)
pos_neg = 1;
else
pos_neg = -1;
//Drive Motors
pwm_04=pwm_05=(rand + 127);
pwm_06=pwm_07=(rand * pos_neg + 127);
//Arm
pwm_08=255; //Arms up!
pwm_09=(rand/2*pos_neg + 127); //Wavy hands
This isn't a joke; this will be our autonomous algorithm next year if our students don't come up with anything to do in autonomous. Students be warned!
I can tell you that was definitely not the case with this guy, he is one of the most gregarious outgoing guys I have ever met... I think this was more a case of microsoft being microsoft. The primary problem was that they did NOT track previous user interactions with the paper clip, and by presenting the paper clip as a "living" character they created expectations of that from the user without ever delivering it.
After saying "this is it, I have the right answer!" countless times only to discover that it was not the right answer, I developed my universal programming qualifier:
"In my perhaps slightly correct opinion, I think I may have possibly estimated what I believe could maybe be almost somewhat close to a semi-decent approximation of the nearly-correct answer."
ComradeNikolai
10-03-2008, 08:41
I was in the back of our room doing the programming (I use the computer in the back, MPLAB is on it, and then the computer in the front downloads it), so I told my coach is was ok to go ahead and download the autonomous, which he did. He consequently tested it and Fluffy raised her arm and lunged forward, nearly killing our coach's projector.
After that, he learned where the "robot reset" button was.
cerberus170
10-03-2008, 10:11
here are a few i thought of:
1. Right code, wrong robot
2. Oh, it wasn't supposed to do that?
3. I think something is wrong, I keep getting "build succeeded"
4. Digital inputs on the robot controller are not the same as the oi
5. I thought you were programming
6. Sure I can write my own game, but I think asking me to make the robot go forward 10 feet without setting itself on fire is a little too much to ask.
basicxman
10-03-2008, 12:58
A friend and I were standing around the grill, watching the burgers cook. You know, if you don’t watch them they don’t get done. ;)
Another friend walks up and comes up with this immensely clever line:
“How many programmers does it take to grill hamburgers?”. (I should mention said friend is a salesman. :P )
My first reaction is to offer a mocking half-laugh at this ‘joke’ (though admittedly, most of my jokes are worse). However, the programmer in me can’t resist the challenge of providing a technically correct answer.
“1″… Even though there are clearly two of us standing there.
From the salesman I receive a confused look and a “Huh?”. Moments later, my programmer friend starts laughing.
The salesman asks “What, is that some inside joke or something?”
The griller explains. “Let’s say you have an array of 10 numbers. You would expect them to be numbered 1 through 10. But the computer will number them 0 through 9 instead.”
I’m not sure if the next look from my salesman friend was more confusion, disgust, or some potent mixture of both. ;)
something i found on the internet
slavik262
11-03-2008, 18:22
A joke based on arrays. Now I've seen everything.
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