Adventures in Defecation

Has anyone else noticed just how anally-obsessed the computer industry is? Let me give you a few examples.

When people are discussing client/server methodologies, they often use different terms for the same concepts — “front end” and “back end”. And of course, because the server can be logical as well as physical, you can have back ends to back ends. The butts are proliferating! Hurry, someone call the U.N so we can sign a back end proliferation treaty! (I’m sure they’ll get around to it once they figure out how to stop creating scandals.)

And malware? Everyone knows that trojan horses install “back doors” so that the attacker can log into your system remotely. One of the most famous malware apps is called Back Orifice.

When a program crashes, what does it do? It dumps or it abends. What do you call a listing of code? A code dump.

Worst of all, the software industry calls the people who actually use their programs — get ready — the end user.

So why is this little slice of the world abnormally obsessed with poop? I think it’s because most software programmers are simply spoiled brats. They know that they create lame code but get to throw fits because they do things that management can’t understand. I think that they should just cut that poop out.