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With Apologies to Arnold Lobel
Two programmers sat at a computer with an opened text editor, writing in the only programming language they knew. It was nice. Their programs worked there. “This programming language is very nice,” said the first programmer. “But I wonder what the other programmers are using?”
“We do not know. We never will.” Said the second programmer.
One day a senior developer walked by. “Suzie, could you tell us what kind of programming languages the other programmers are using?” Asked the two programmers. Suzie thought about it for a second and said, “They are using paradigms you’ve never seen, languages of unbridled efficiency, clarity, and performance.”
The first programmer said, “All of those languages sound amazing. All of the other programmers are using them.”
“How sad.” Said the second programmer. “We cannot use them, we never will.”
The two programmers sat at their terminal. They felt sad for 100 days.
One day a junior developer walked by. “Joey, could you tell us what kind of programming languages the other programmers are using?” Asked the programmers.
Joey said quickly, without thinking, “They’re using the same languages as you!”
The first programmer said, “Suzie told us a lie. The other programmers are using the same exact languages as we are.”
“Oh good!” Said the second programmer. “We feel happy now. We always will.”
The end.