Programming joke cycles
joke variation templates’ different purposes 2025-11-04 #programming #humour
- The importance of jokes
- Original jokes
- 97 Jokes
- Joke cycles ←
Jokes often belong to joke cycles – series of jokes with a common subject or format, such as chicken jokes. As well as using classic joke cycles, some programming jokes start new ones.
Inclusion
Lightbulb jokes highlight a stereotype about people in a certain group:
How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. It’s a hardware problem.
This joke suggests that programmers do some kinds of work (software problems), but not others (hardware problems). Unlike derogatory lightbulb jokes, programmers use this joke to identify as part of the group. Other lightbulb jokes may sound derogatory, while people in the group may tell the joke as a point of pride:
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. Microsoft has redefined darkness to be the new standard.
– geordieinexile (2008)
Some jokes portray in-group shared experience, instead of stereotypes:
How many web developers does it take to change a light bulb?
One.
They replace the light bulb.
Clear browser cache.
Replace the light bulb again.
Ctrl+F5.
Replace the light bulb again.– Corneil du Plessis (2023)
In this case, if you laugh at the joke (the first time), then you can call yourself a web developer. This makes these jokes group-inclusion jokes.
Education
Social media can generate a joke cycle in realtime, such as when Bill Sempf posted this classic bar joke in 2014:
A QA engineer walks into a bar.
Orders a beer.
Orders 0 beers.
Orders 999999999 beers.
Orders a lizard.
Orders −1 beers.
Orders a sfdeljknesv.
The replies added many test cases, plus this user-testing favourite:
The bar’s first real customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flame killing everyone.
– Phil Darnowsky (2014)
Bill Sempf included many good examples from the thread them in a blog post about testing the next day. He also includes the cautionary-tale that inspired the original. In general, some educational jokes take the form of warnings from people who learned the hard way.
Warnings
My favourite warning joke cycle starts with the classic joke, by Phil Karlton:
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.
This joke explains my interest in naming: its underrated and largely ignored difficulty. I also like how variations extend the joke format:
There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.
– Leon Bambrick (2010)
This illustrates an additional topic – off-by-one errors, by demonstrating the issue in the punchline: including a third problem in a list of ‘two problems’ makes an off-by-one error.
As in other joke cycles, variations can also focus on more specific topics, such as network programming:
There are only two hard problems in distributed systems:>
- Exactly-once delivery
- Guaranteed order of messages
- Exactly-once delivery
– Matthias Verraes (2015)
The many variations in this joke cycle cover a variety of technical problems. However, the last word in warning jokes acknowledges how people problems pose a greater problem, in practice:
The hardest problem in computer science is not being an opinionated jerk about everything.
– Nick Takayama (2014)
