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The Programmer's Alphabet

from Coffee, Computers, and Song by Steve Savitzky

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Terry England
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about

Loosely inspired by various sailors' alphabet songs.

lyrics

A is for ASCII, our Alphabet's name
B is the Bugs, for which we get the blame.
C the Computer, which never works right, and
D is Debugging, the rest of the night.


E is the Elegant problems we're set
F is old Fortran we try to Forget.
G is the GOTO we're trying to kill, and
H is the Hacker who uses it still.


Programming, programming, all through the night,
We're stuck here until our new program works right.
Programming, programming, isn't it fun?
The maintenance starts when debugging is done!


I is the Input we handle with care
J is the Jump to nobody knows where
K is the Kludge with which we got by, and
L is for Later to fix it we'll try.


M is the Memory, dropping a bit,
N the New version, that doesn't quite fit.
O is the Op'rating system we buy, and
P is the Patch to make our programs fly.


Q is for QWERTY, of typewriter lore,
R is the RAM that we used to call core.
S is the Standard we'll follow some day, and
T is the Teletype, banging away.


U is the User, that Unhappy man,
V is the Vengeance he wreaks when he can.
W is Work, it's the manager's call, and
X is the Xerox machine down the hall.


Y is the Yes you reply by mistake, and
Z is the Zeros all over your tape.
There may be more verses they wanted to send,
But they've all gotten clobbered, so this is the end.

no chorus after last verse

credits

from Coffee, Computers, and Song, released July 1, 2007
Robin Baylor - backup vocals

license

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about

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Steve Savitzky Seattle, Washington

Notorious hacker/songwriter Steve Savitzky has been kicking around the Net since the days of bang-paths and bearskins, and writes songs of computers, spacecraft, love, friendship -- and sometimes all four at once.

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