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User since: Nov 09, 2000 at 19:24 UTC (23 years ago)
Last here: Jul 03, 2008 at 12:12 UTC (16 years ago)
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Location:Nottingham, England
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the parable of brother flay

One day a Seeker of Wisdom came down from the North to the Southern Valley, there to enter the service of the Company. The seeker's name was brother flay, and he was strong in the ways of Perl, but had not yet completed his apprenticeship and was without experience.

The first task given to the young aspirant was the optimisation of a Program, that it would run faster and without problems, that the System would execute in a timely fashion and that the Project would not fail.

Now, the language of the Company in that time was VB, the language of the disciples of Bill, and it was cretinous and inelegant and a chore to write.

But flay had keen insight, and saw that the Program was merely a text munger, and that the use of VB was not the use of The Right Tool For The Job, as he had been taught, but the use of The Last Programmer's Favourite Tool, as had been warned against by the Wise, and he saw that the optimisation could come from rewriting the Program in Perl.

And lo! flay did toil for forty hours and forty tea breaks, and the Code was completed ahead of Schedule, for flay was wise in the use of Emacs and was constrained not by the Evil that is called Visual Studio.

And flay was joyful at the completion of the Code, for it fulfilled the Specification most admirably, and he did take it directly to the three Important Ones: Senior Programmer, Senior Technical Architect and MANAGER.

Senior Programmer did say "Show me the Company Perl Procedure, that I may QC this Code."

And Senior Technical Architect did say "Show me the Company Perl Standard, that I may Review its Design."

And MANAGER did say "Show me the Company Adepts of Perl, that I may Maintain this Program."

But flay was sorely vexed, for he could not show Senior Programmer the Perl Procedure, nor the Perl Standard to Senior Technical Architect, nay, not even Adepts of Perl to MANAGER, for no such things existed within the Company.

And Senior Programmer, Senior Technical Architect and MANAGER did laugh at flay and pour scorn upon his Design, and he was chastened and did flee from their sight.

And it came to pass that flay refabricated the Design in the language of the disciples of Bill, and the Code was crufty and verbose, and where there had once been a single line now there were ten, and the speed of the Code was but a fifth.

But Senior Programmer, Senior Technical Architect and MANAGER found great joy in the Code, despite its sloth and lack of grace, for they had Procedure and Standard and Adepts to QC and Review and Maintain, and they cared not for flay's heaviness of heart, nor the moroseness of his face, and they praised his work, though he liked it not.

Three months later the Project was cancelled for being too slow.