> "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection, except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."

First time I've heard that quote, but I love it. Reminds me of this one:

"There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."

I was convinced both of those quotes were from Dijkstra (as quotes go, the Mark Twain of CS).

Turns out, the second one is originally from one Phil Karlton (as reported by Tim Bray [1] , that's enough authority for me), without the "off-by-one" part.

The first one, which I was goddamned sure was Dijkstra, is actually by David (not A.) Wheeler (via Butler Lampson) [2], inventor of the subroutine.

That rabbit-hole took me longer than expected. Hopefully I'm saving some time for someone else ;)

[1] https://twitter.com/timbray/status/506146595650699264

[2] http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/inbook/beautiful_code/html/...

My quote list has the second half as a later elaboration:

  "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection"
  "But that usually will create another problem."
  -- David Wheeler

  "...except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."
  -- Kevlin Henney

What's the best thing about telling UDP jokes? You don't care if they get it.

Or:

What's the best thing about telling UDP jokes? if don't You they get care it.

> if don't You they get care if.

Don't forget that UDP allows repeats and drops!

and repeats.

I was going to post a reply here with an HTTP joke but I am feeling slightly insecure.

"There are two hard problems in computer science: we only have one joke and it's not funny."

(I think it's funny though.)

Plenty of other jokes abound:

- What goes "Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!"

- Parity error

Look up "recursion" in the dictionary and it says: See Recursion.

Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because 25 DEC == 31 OCT

You know what's a C + iJ? A Complex Joke.

You know why Complex Jokes aren't funny? Because the joke part is imaginary.

Q: How many prolog programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Yes.

These are way better than that bloody binary joke in every computer department.

the better version of the binary joke is

Binary: as easy as 1, 10, 11

Base 2 is not special.

You do not "read" binary from right to left. At least in English, the most significant digit is on the left, just like any other base (e.g. base 10, base 8, or base 89432890432).

Also, for your leading 0, I would write: Bob has 23 apples, and I have 5. I wouldn't write: Bob has 23 apples, and I have 05. Base 2 is not special, so I wouldn't write 01.

You can also turn your order argument on its head: since the order of digits in base 10 is exactly the same as base 2 (most significant on the left), you could say that "As easy as 1, 2, 3" should actually be read as "As easy as 3, 2, 1", which matches your binary reading "As easy as 3, 2, 1".

The two can be melded together: There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who suffer off-by-one errors.

I like it, but how about:

There are only 10 hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

I thought it was: There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who were expecting a base 3 joke.

It really is:

There are 10 kind of people in the world: Those who know binary, those who don't, and those who start counting from zero.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, those who know ternary, those who know base four, ..., and those who know that every base is base 10.

It really is:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who know hexadecimal, and F the rest...

>and those who start counting from zero.

That kills the joke. 'off-by-one' is subtler.