this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
693 points (99.9% liked)

Programmer Humor

28738 readers
2302 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] RedFrank24@piefed.social 59 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

Anyone who complains about code not compiling on the first try likely hasn't been coding for very long. Getting your code to do what you tell it is easy, getting it to do what you want is hard.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I usually code in an IDE that tells me whether my code will compile while I am typing it.

But when I write things like PL/SQL, yeah it is definitely an achievement to get it to compile.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 3 minutes ago

Have you ever tried compiling your BASH scripting code? Man, that's like, ~~almost~~ literally impossible! :-P

[–] ClownStatue@piefed.social 17 points 6 hours ago

Getting your code to do what you tell it is easy. Getting it to do what you want is hard.

New email signature unlocked.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 13 points 5 hours ago

Code will ALWAYS do EXACTLY what you tell it to do, and that is specifically the problem.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 1 points 4 hours ago

When I started programming with C, it was pretty easy to get code to compile on my first try.

Now, when I use C...
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 199309L ... was in the man page, but didn't work... _GNU_SOURCE works.
Read somewhere to just use -std=gnu17 and remove _GNU_SOURCE and nice, it works.
Create another project with -std=gnu17, but using another function and now it doesn't work. Need to add _GNU_SOURCE. Why?

[–] pipe01@programming.dev 33 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

Compiling is only half the battle

[–] palmtrees2309@lemmy.world 25 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

In Rust, it is 80% of the battle.

[–] Siethron@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago

In assembly it's none of the battle. Or all of the battle depending on the perspective.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 39 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That's why you know that if your code hasn't put up a fight yet, it's because it's saving its energy.

[–] boeman@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

I feel that in my soul.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

Can’t wait to see how much lint is in her dryer

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 18 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 hour ago

He's dividing by s.

in case you are serious"/S" means "sarcasm"