An engineer, a physicist, and a computer scientist are each asleep in adjacent, identical hotel rooms. By an amazing coincidence, in each room, a fire breaks out in the wastebasket.
The engineer awakes, sees the fire, grabs a pitcher of water he has sitting by his bedside, and douses the flames. He then re-fills the pitcher, empties it into the ashes, stirring them to be certain the fire is out, then re-fills the pitcher once more for any future emergency before going back to sleep. The physicist awakes, sees the fire and also sees the pitcher of water. He calculates how big the fire is and exactly how much water is required to put it out, pours this much water on the flames, dousing them, then goes back to sleep. The computer scientist awakes, sees the fire, sees the pitcher, concludes that the problem is solvable in O(n) time, and goes back to sleep. On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Roger Hui <[email protected]>wrote: > As a matter of fact, I had two glasses in the vicinity of where I slept > last night, one empty and one full. But it's not for the reasons you > described. > > My favorite joke/story is > http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm#APL_course1 . Long but > worthwhile. It's an APL story but it would have worked even better in J, > given our emphasis on rank. > > Two other amusing ones: > http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm#18pt (you have to read the > immediately preceding non-funny anecdote for this to make sense) > http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm#IC2013 > > > > > > On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 7:19 AM, Dan Bron <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > A programmer puts two glasses on his bedside table before going to > > sleep. > > A full one, in case he gets thirsty, and an empty one, in case he > > doesn't. > > > > Found at: http://stackoverflow.hewgill.com/questions/234/075.html > > > > So what's your favorite computer/programming joke? > > > > -Dan > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
