view etc/DEVEL.HUMOR @ 73258:4c4a27585734

New file for (sometimes unintended) humor in the Emacs developer's list.

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-- Humor (sometimes unintended) on the Emacs developer's list       --
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  "Is it legal for a `struct interval' to have a total_length field of
zero?"
  "We can't be arrested for it as far as I know, but it is definitely
invalid for an interval to have zero length."
                                                -- Miles Bader and RMS

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Re: lost argument and doc string

I remember when I lost an argument.  Boy did that hurt!  ;-).
                                                      -- RMS

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  "'Cowardly' is not an adverb, although it looks like one.  It is an
adjective.  It makes a statement about general temperament, rather
than a specific occasion.  I don't think Emacs has a general
temperament."
  "Mine does."
                                             -- RMS and Eli Zaretskii

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  "In order to bring the user's attention to the minibuffer when an
item such as 'Edit -> Search' is activated from the menu, I was just
thinking that we could draw a big rectangle around the minibuffer,
blinking (or zooming in-and-out) until some input is typed in."
  "How about dancing elephants?"
  "They don't fit in my office."
  "Well once the elephants are done, your office will be much...
bigger."
                  -- Stefan Monnier, Miles Bader and Kai Grossjohann

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I remember these versions as yard-rocks (is that between inch-pebbles
and mile-stones?).
                                                   -- Kai Grossjohann

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  "I think it depends on video drivers.  I cannot reproduce it on my
home PC, but I can at work."
  "Can you try to find a workaround at work?  (I guess you don't need
a homearound at home.  ;-)"
                                              -- Jason Rumney and RMS

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By the way, I also really really hate this unibyte/multibyte problem.
Sometimes I think I should have opposed to the introduction of such a
concept more strongly.

    imagine there's no unibyte
    it's easy if you try
    no bytes below us
    above us only chars
    imagine all the people living in multibyte

                                                     -- Kenichi Handa

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I try to uphold the ideals that I was taught to value as an American,
but every year I get less and less help from the United States.
                                                              -- RMS

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  "If the terminfo entry is most likely wrong, and we know it, then it
doesn't make sense to follow it."
  "Nevertheless, until now, we always did."
  "So.... should we not fix old bugs?"
  "Why fix an old bug if you can write three new ones in the same
time?"
                       -- Miles Bader, Eli Zaretskii and David Kastrup

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  [...] As is well known, people who speak American English tend to
be more resource-conscious and try to avoid wasting precious bits
transferring those redundant "u"s.
  Think of the number of occurrences of "color" and "behavior" in the
Emacs tarball, multiply that by the number of times it'll be
downloaded, stored on hard disks, archived, ...that's a substantial
saving.
                                                    -- Stefan Monnier

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Re: Parent of a derived mode's keymap.

  "I can't decide whether the title of this thread is more fitting for
a blues song or a pulp fiction booklet.  It certainly projects drama."
  "Hey, it says derived, not deprived."
  "Actually, for some keymaps 'depraved' would fit better."
  "I knew it!  You're one of them vi lovers!  There is nothing wrong
with Emacs using escape, meta, alt, control, and shift!"
                                     -- David Kastrup and Lute Kamstra

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  "Aren't user-defined constants useful in other languages?"
  "The only user-defined constant is ignorance.  (With programmers,
this is a variable concept ;-)"
                        -- Juanma Barranquero and Thien-Thi Nguyen

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  "Uh, 'archaic' and 'alive' is not a contradiction."
  "Yes it is.  'Archaic' does not mean 'old' or 'early'.  It means
'obsolete'."
  "'He arche' in Greek means 'the beginning'.  John 1 starts off with
'En arche en ho Logos': in the beginning, there was the word.  Now of
course we all know that Emacs was there before Word, but this might
have escaped John's notice."
                                             -- David Kastrup and RMS

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  "Sorry for the long message.  I wanted to make the problem clear
also for people not familiar with `woman'."
  "Most hackers, I take?
   For a moment there I thought you had a patch that you could put on
a woman, and it would make her come right to the topic at point
without attempting any course of action that requires an advance
course in divination.
   There'd be quite a sensational market for that, you know."
                                    -- Emilio Lopes and David Kastrup