At a recent social gathering I was introduced to a woman with the words, "You two will get on well together. She's a Real Computer Wizard!" ME: "Pleased to meet you." RCW: "Hi!" ME: "Where do you work?" RCW: "I'm the operations manager at the ... (major Victorian State Government organisation)." ME (struggling to think of something intelligent to say): "Oh. What operating system do you use there?" RCW: "IBM!" ME: "Er, yes, er, what languages do you use?" RCW: "MVS." ME: "" RCW: "What operating system do you use?" ME: "UNIX and UNIX lookalikes." RCW: "Oh, that shit!" ME: "Have you used it?" RCW: "No. What language do you use?" ME: "C." RCW: "Huh?" ME: "C." RCW: "What's that?" ME: "It's a programming language." RCW: "What does it stand for?" ME: "Huh?" RCW: "There's COBOL, but what does C stand for?" ME: "Nothing. That's the name of the language. Just C." RCW: "Rubbish. Why use it?" ME: "Well, the interface between C and UNIX is so ..." RCW: "You don't need an interface. You only need that when one computer's connected to another!" ME: (sigh) RCW: "What?" ME: "Nothing ... how much RAM does the system have." RCW: "RAM?" ME: "Random access memory." RCW: "Oh, we don't use that!" ME: "Huh?" RCW: "That's such an old-fashioned term. We use megabytes!" ME: "All right, how many megabytes of RAM does the system have?" RCW: "It's not called RAM. Why be so old-fashioned? It's just megabytes!" ME: "That's like renaming the Niagara Falls as '200 Megalitres Falls'." RCW: "Don't be silly." ME (wandering off in search of a stiff drink): "SIGH!" RCW (to host): "I thought you said he used computers. He doesn't know what he's talking about!" (I'm sure the above TRUE story could explain a great deal about something or other if only I could work out what it was!!)
(From the "Rest" of RHF)