The Night Before Rollout

Date in my archives: unknown

From the web: Twas the Night Before Rollout

Twas the night before implementation
And all through the house
Not a computer was working,
Not even a mouse.

The programmers hung by their ties in despair,
With hopes that a miracle soon would be there.
The customers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of progress danced in their heads.

When out of the CODE there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a super programmer (with a six pack of beer).

His resume glowed with experience so rare,
He turned out great code with a bit pusher's flair.
More rapid than eagles, his routines they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

On operator NEW! On operator DELETE!
On "for" loops! "do while"! On Functions Complete!

His eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean,
From weekends and nights spent in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know, I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Turning specs into code, then turned with a jerk;
And laying his finger upon the "enter" key,
The system came up and worked perfectly.

The functions functioned; the deletes, they deleted;
The inquiries inquired and "for" loops completed.
He tested each whistle, and tested each bell,
With nary a rewrite, thus all had gone well.

The code was checked in, the tests were concluded,
Marketing's last changes were even included.
"Heh!", the customer exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt,
"It's just what I asked for, but not what I want!"