Programming jokes

[fimmel]

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]

Originally Posted by Bomberofdoom

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.

[MattD]

Originally Posted by fimmel

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.

[Cuog]

Originally Posted by fimmel

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.

[ace123]

Lynx is so out of date any more except for testing. If you actually want to browse in a console, I recommend ELinks. 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]

Originally Posted by fimmel

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.

[fimmel]

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
/forest

[hipsterjr]

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!

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2.../fl/fl_031.wmv

[esquared]

Originally Posted by esquared

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

[JohnC]

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.

[Jake M]

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]

Once upon a time, I activated autonomous mode.. and my laptop flies at 14.4ft/sec...

A new hard drive was required.

[RyanN]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

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