I just wanted to share an observation with you. Maybe you have experienced this too. Let me know. Recently I came to a conclusion that a lot of people are really into team sports. And I don’t mean that they actually participate in them – they just obsess over them. I have nothing against watching sports on TV or rooting for your team. But apparently some people treat these things like serious business.
They bicker and argue about the sports teams as if they were text editors or something. And no I’m not kidding here. I know that most of the readers here are going to say “You are full of shit Luke, there is no way anyone could get that worked up about sports” but they do. For no reason whatsoever too.
It's almost like editor wars.
I mean, the editor debate has merits. It is about the most efficient and productive way of editing text files – which is what we programmers do for a living. Picking the right work tool is incredibly important. Sports on the other hand – well, that’s just entertainment. And yet people get really worked up about them.
For example, being seen wearing a shirt with the logo of the wrong team is reputation destroying, friendship ending sin and anyone committing it deserves fate worse death. Kinda like being caught using the wrong text editor.
I figured I might as well post this here, so that we can all benefit from this. Next time you see people behaving irrationally when sports are involved, think back to text editor debates. It is a bit like that.
I think you meant to tag this one under “attempted humor”
Wow, that came out a lot meaner than I thought it would :P
You know what, just ignore my comments, because I sound like a complete asshole.
@ Phil:
To be fair, 90% of the stuff I do here is “attempted humor”. Eh, you win some, you lose some I guess.
Also your randomly generated wavatar icon seems strangely appropriate. LOL
I long for the day crowds of thousands of people would assemble in the streets, holding signs promoting Vi or Emacs and wearing support T-Shirts. They would then look at huge screen and root for the best programmers trying to code something the fastest and with the least keystrokes, using their favored software, so that they can finally prove one’s superiority over the other, until the next contest that is. Just imagine the tension when each team gets to compiling, and everyone waits anxiously for parse errors that would lead to instant elimination.
For now, I guess I’ll just have to settle for the Football (the real one) World Cup.
Phil : category – Humor (made me laugh, you having a bad day fella?)
For me sports are not quite in the realm of obsession, although neither is the editor debate. I like football (soccer), I love my countries national team (as well as Bolton Wanderers), but I won’t breakdown crying if/when we get knocked out the World Cup.
I also love Vim, but if someone else wants to use Emacs, or even Notepad for that matter – I’d still share a pint with them (well, not actually share the same pint, but you get my meaning).
@ Zel:
I always thought that this did not happen because most of us were anti-social and introverted by nature. Also we have the internet – no reason to leave the house to bicker about stuff. :P
Also, programming is not much of a spectator sport. Its only exciting when you are one of the participants.
@ mcai8sh4:
Same here. I like vi but I don’t actually mind if people use Emacs or something else.
This one was funny.
Especially with Zel’s comment :D
Now, you should see german soccer fans. They require police to keep them calm at certain games…
And one of my co-workers is a stand-alone-fan of one team while most of the company supports other teams. The comments he receives… Oh my!