A JavaScript developer, a Python developer, a C++ developer, and 97 PHP developers enter a bar.
The barman asks, “What can I get ya, fellows?”
The PHP developers say they’ll make their orders later. The barman turns to the JavaScript developer and asks him for his order.
“I’ll have a beer.” The JavaScript developer replies, and the barman turns around and quickly serves him a bottle.
The PHP developers start singing loudly: “99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall.”
The barman feels a headache coming on. He ignores them and asks the Python developer what she’ll have. He cringes internally when the woman orders a beer as well.
Quickly, he serves her a beer.
“98 bottles of beer on the wall, 98 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 97 bottles of beer on the wall.”
The PHP developers finish singing the next verse. The barman, now incensed, looks at the PHP developers and asks why they’re doing this.
“We heard there’s strength in numbers.”
The barman scowls and turns to C++ developer with a sigh, “What about you then? What can I get ya?”
The C++ developer sighs, “I’ll have 97 bottles of beer.”
I, uh… I don’t get it. Somebody help an idiot out? I haven’t had my morning cuppa yet so it might just be a lack of caffeine.
You’re not alone… This makes no sense.
Is it saying that the PHP developers are kids and the C++ developer is acting as their parent?
I’m not sure.
Yeah, was the C++ dev just “pre-empting” the PHP devs by ordering all their beers for them so they don’t do it one by one and sing the rest of the song?
Maybe also the fact that PHP interpreter is written in C and a bit of C++, so C kind of “does everything for them”
Still, this makes no sense since most JS engines are written in C++, and Python is the only one more or less self-sufficient, albeit major implementations often use other languages as a source. And because it should’ve been C, not C++
PHP has ben JITed for a while now too.
I don’t recall it being known as slow compared to python even before that.
Maybe a buffer overflow?
Anti Commercial-AI license
The 99 bottles of beer song is (was?) a popular programming exercise to teach beginners about loops. Singing it in real life would be pretty annoying because you would essentially repeat the same two sentences for a couple of minutes. Apparently, the PHP developers were planning to order one beer each, sing the song and get on everyone’s nerves. The C++ dev stopped this by buying all the remaining beer at once.
The choice of languages is probably OP’s own prejudice. These days I’d say PHP devs are on average older and more experienced than JS and Python devs, just because almost nobody learns PHP as their first language anymore.
The joke is, that the php devs force the C++ Dev to buy them all a beer. Pretty sure that’s a reference to the nature of the php interpreter being written in C. The C Dev is carrying their water so to speak.
Ok, let’s just ignore what language Python and Javascript interpreters are written.
And that C++ is not C.