this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Programmer Humor

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 143 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

Then we learned that if you wanted to get the right answer from people ... all you had to do was confidently post an answer, any answer, especially if it was wrong ... and so many people would jump on you so fast to tell you how stupid you were and give you the right answer.

.... and you also had to tie an onion on your belt which was the style of the time.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 50 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm studying right now and I'm the lead for a group project. I've been having a hard time getting the team to actually talk with each other and come up with ideas. Someone told me the other week "pitch bad ideas badly". So I tried that with the title of our project I put down a shit awful name, told everyone about it, and within 5 minutes the team came back to me with an actual title

[–] nebeker@programming.dev 43 points 2 months ago

A Project Manager just earned their wings.

[–] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 39 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Phishing legitimate answers out of people by exploiting their ego is still one of the most impressive things I haven't thought of.

Will try to keep in mind

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 months ago

So that's how I can get away with it! You just eradicated every last hints of remorse that I had in me.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones

[–] nebeker@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

I learned to let you all squabble amongst yourselves and get the answer. Since every question is a duplicate, it stands to reason the question I have has already been answered.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I used to do this on Reddit. Someone would post a question I too wanted an answer to, but no one was answering. So, I'd post a wrong answer.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

This actually has a name, it's called Goodhart's Law

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

all you had to do was confidently post an answer, any answer, especially if it was wrong

so called murphy's law...

[–] TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

I love how you keep making this joke mr. cunningham.

[–] Thorry@feddit.org 119 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

First we created communities that we used to share information and ideas. This allowed people to grow in their skills and in turn teach others what they learnt. This cycle kept the communities going, providing an important service for everyone involved.

Then capitalism turned those communities into walled gardens, often using predatory patterns to increase engagement to the detriment of the quality. Being walled off made it harder to share the knowledge, leaving people with only a few larger holdouts of what once had been.

Then we created machines to do the learning for us, finally killing off the concept of information sharing communities. These machines learnt from every knowledge sharing community that existed previously and became the place to access that knowledge. Without people coming into the communities, even the last holdouts could no longer sustain themselves. The ability to share and gain new knowledge was removed, causing stagnation for everyone involved. The ability to actually learn anything was also greatly reduced, having the machines apply the knowledge directly. The new machines can't learn, can't think, can't reason or be creative, all they can do is remix already existing information and regress to the mean while doing so.

But for a while there, a lot of value was created for the shareholders.

[–] MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This text is great, you have amazing writing :)

[–] Thorry@feddit.org 12 points 2 months ago

Thank you so much!

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

LLM are useless for niche stuff. They are ok-ish, if you do something another 100s of people already did (like, overengineering a webpage). Which is contra the idea of open source, btw.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This has got vaguely Douglas Adams vibes.

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[–] voxthefox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 months ago

I've had this in my head for a bit, but you expressed it much more eloquently then I ever could have, going to save this for later!

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I am saving this.

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[–] Australis13@fedia.io 94 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The other option was that nobody ever replied...

https://xkcd.com/979/

[–] Peereboominc@piefed.social 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And then it turns out that it was himself last month.

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[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 44 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Now we go to a text transformer that poops spaghetti code by the bucket.

[–] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 2 months ago

At least it tells me I'm right all the time. 🤗

[–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 24 points 2 months ago

"And you stopped because now you ask AI instead?"

"No! Because the special website adopted AI!"

[–] psud@aussie.zone 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

What was the website? I just had books in '95 and later, Geocities wasn't great for chat, IRC and network news groups were the best places to get help

The web was pretty small in the '90s

I spent my time in newsgroups in role playing game flame wars

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 36 points 2 months ago

StackOverflow

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was Experts Exchange. Then they paywalled everything like greedy idiots - hiding decades of useful community knowledge.

Then everyone moved rapidly to StackExchange, which had coexisted but been quite small until EE did their thing.

[–] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Ah, software developing nerds and expertsexchange. A story as old as time.

It starts with innocent questions, then thigh highs during long coding sessions and... you know the rest. It's all in the name! 😅

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[–] Rothe@piefed.social 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Go to any linux forum or help site today and you can experience it right now.

[–] ivan@piefed.social 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

"Oh, someone had the same problem" as I see forum thread in search results, followed by finding out that thread turned into a gaslighting session on why OP's problem wasn't actually a problem, and no solution was provided as result. 🌝

[–] conartistpanda@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Why would you want to X? Dont X. Problem solved 😊

[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago

That smiley at the end. I laughed. 😂

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

$currentYear was meant to be year of the Linux desktop! Why isn't it?? 😡 Those oafs should be on here by now

Edit: it really highlights the two kinds of patriots. "My country is the best country, anyone criticising can get away from us" and "I am proud of what my country has and has achieved and I want it to be even better; here's how we can make it better because we lack X,y and z"

[–] conartistpanda@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Windows is popular

According to many Linux users, Windows isn't Linux (Which just means they don't want to fix X cause it's not a problem for them)

Therefore, Linux isn't popular.

I've unironically seen people in forums say that Linux doesn't need to grow, that it already acvomplishes its purpose which I guess is serving a bunch of specialized geeks. They don't think mass adoption will bring anything good, as if FOSS could be enshittified instead of getting more support from those interested in contributing to something that works.

To me it feels like the ultimate "fuck you I got mine". It would be different if they said something like "we would like to do this, but we lack the resources". That would be understandable, but they appear to be straigth up hostile to adding stuff that would get more people to use Linux. It feels like classic gatekeeping (which is dumb cause Linux can't enshsittify).

There's always someone willing to tinker, if these people grow up with Windows, I think the tinkering "window" might be lost or wasted on a restrictive OS. But who would want to tinker in order to get working something that should work already? Tinkering should be fun and optional, not a task scheduled at every tuesday.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're right. I updated my post just before your reply.

I spent some time in the mid 00s installing various modification programs on windowd to modify it with stupid shit I found on deviantart. It would have been better if I got to do it on Linux.

Although some enshittification is happening for certain viewpoints on Linux, with some propriety things being allowed and the systemd DOB debacle, and AI on fedora.

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[–] trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtf 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As a masochist, I enjoy the freebsd forum

[–] squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 months ago

It was right there.

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[–] derry@midwest.social 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Jokes on them, I have a shame kink.

[–] rangber@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 months ago

It's called humiliation kink, you stupid stupid boy.

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've got this strange error that only happens in this specific conditions using an obscure software with no documentation, anyone knows how to work around it?

RTFM

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 months ago

RTFM of a different software which the software you are actually interacting with employs. (E.g. having problems with an application that downloads stuff, need to read curl docs because thats what it is using under the hood.)

[–] GutterRat42@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] thesdev@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In that case I can recommend "turning Yahoo Answers into beautiful music": https://m.youtube.com/shorts/NDvaRF4HQHQ

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[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 months ago

hey, currently looking for LMDE help on the Mint forum, can confirm derision is still part of the process.

[–] nullPointer@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

ahh the good ol flamewar days of IRC

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago

Gotta love elitism and punching down.

Then wondering why everyone is so ignorant (you punch them when they ask for answers).

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