this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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Programmer Humor

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What does your sleep paralysis demon ask you?

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's a markup language, not a programming language.

[–] deathmetal27@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I don't think it is.

Care to explain what I'm missing?

[–] deathmetal27@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do I really have to explain the joke? The sleep paralysis demon is asking "Is HTML a programming language?" And the person is "sleep paralysed" to correct them or do anything about it really.

I don't know what else I can explain besides that.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So... The humor is just absurdity?

[–] boatsnhos931@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nearly all the comments are taking a literal position on if it is or isn't a programming language.

Idky I'm being singled out for not understanding the joke. It seems like nearly nobody does. And I still don't.

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The “joke” is that it’s an issue that people feel compelled to comment on, but the sleeping person can’t. Predictably, most people are blowing straight past this and commenting their opinions, but most of the other replies are joking or whimsical. Yours is straightforward no-nonsense. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s why you’re being singled out.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

Ok, that kinda makes sense, but that seems pretty niche. you have to make a few cognitive leaps to get it. That's ok, it's fine to make jokes like that, but it seems a bit much to be a jerk to folks who don't get it.

Looking over the comment section again, it's still like it was when I posted: most people are taking the question at face value, and not engaging with the joke.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not a logical programming language, but markup directs the formatting and general output of content to the screen. -Is that not a function of programming?

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does that make Rich Text Format a programming language then? Does that make jpg a programming language?

I think that markup is the data that a program takes as input - but I also think it's not black and white. How programmy a language is is a sliding scale.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Those are interesting analogies. I guess I'd have to agree they are certainly a function of programming whereas I probably should have specified programming languages (directed by text) but then one could argue that the examples you mentioned are merely a language of buttons and other user input. —"Sliding scale " indeed.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant the formats themselves.
Writing rich text using a text editor is kind of like writing HTML with a WYSIWYG editor, but just like with HTML you can go in and write RTF by hand.
Likewise you can use Photoshop to make an image, but you could also go in and set the pixel values of a bmp by hand.

By sliding scale I didn't mean wrt how you wrote them, but rather how much like an "instruction" the file tokens (for lack of better word) are. Is it instructing the computer to do something? Or is it data that the instructions act on?

Sometimes the line between input data and instruction is blurry.