Related:

• Real software engineers write in languages that have not actually been implemented for any machine, and for which only the formal spec (in BNF) is available.
  This keeps them from having to take any machine dependencies into account....
• languages of choice: n. {C} and {LISP}. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both.
  Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities....
• boustrophedon n. [from a Greek word for turning like an ox while plowing] An ancient method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left lines.
  This term is actually philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon....
• boustrophedon: [from a Greek word for turning like an ox while plowing] n.
  An ancient method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left lines....
• Real software engineers admire PASCAL for its discipline and Spartan purity, but they find it difficult to actually program in.
  They don't tell this to their friends, because they are afraid it means that they are somehow Unworthy....
• Real software engineers like C's structured constructs, but they are suspicious of it because they have heard that it lets you get "close to the machine.
• languages of choice n. C, C++, LISP, and Perl.
  Nearly every hacker knows one of C or LISP, and most good ones are fluent in both....
• Real software engineers play tennis. In general, they don't like any sport that involves getting hot and sweaty and gross when out of range of a shower.
  (Thus mountain climbing is Right Out.) They will occasionally wear their tennis togs to work, but only on very sunny days....