It's interesting how something as mundane as light bulbs can become a challenge for people to create new questions and answers (both equally witty) as they go along. We started with the good ol' men and women thing, and now we're doing software-based questions (I like the one about the Microsoft engineers) - technology sure rocks! Mind you, we still don't forget the men-women thing - it has generic appeal you see - I don't need to know the difference between Mac and Windows to appreciate a light bulb joke!
I like the fact that the our humor is also improving/advancing along with the technology around us. It's the in thing to joke about C++ and Java as opposed to our usual lawyers and politicians. Not as interesting, but its cool man!
These days I'm made to realize more often that the world does not start and end with software developers. There are locksmiths, hardware store owners, teachers, tellers, mechanics, tourist guides, security guards, chefs, chauffeurs, bus drivers, taxi drivers, pilots, stewards, fishermen, etc to name a very few! If you're a software developer (or engineer if you want to make it sound more serious - anything that you want to sound serious, call it engineering), your entire gamut of friends and neighbours are software developers!! And as a software engineer myself, I have to accept - we're not that much fun (you're very welcome to prove me wrong). We just cannot talk about normal things. Like the weather. Or food. All talks just have to come around to client-servers and grid computing! Oh for cryin out loud!
I have some friends who are not software engineers. Very few friends. Actually, it's just one. And I like the fact that when I'm with her, I don't need to talk about tech stacks and Applications and databases! She wouldn't think I'm a technologically-challenged person if I swap the definitions of a stub and a skeleton (a good possibility I would do that - not much into RMI). Our IT talk ends with e-mail. We talk about cooking. We talk about clothes and jewellery. Normal girl things. And guess what? Its fun! :-)
It's good to come out of our worlds once in a while and meet up with regular people. Like Mom and Dad. Like friends who're interested in your earrings - not in the config of your laptop. It's not that I hate being a software engineer, heck, I'm proud to be one. I can make sense out of endless bits of characters called code. But it kinda gets to me once in a while. I do long for times when I can hear the word 'bug' and think of an insect and not a software application!
Guess what? I gotta stop right here 'coz I have a bug to fix. And I cannot do it with a swatter.
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