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The first creation
In the beginning, there was chaos and the universe was without
form and void. The Lord looked upon his domain and decided to
declare his presence.
"I be", He said, then to correct his grammar added "am".
If the Lord had decided to work on irregular verb conjugation
first, this wouldn't have happened. God would later curse the
English language for it's part, but in that moment I.B.M. came
into being.
The Lord looked out upon the I.B.M. He had created and said
"This is good". That's what He said, but He shook His head,
wondered what the boys at the users group would say, split the
light from the dark and went to bed. Thus, passed the beginning
and the end of the first day.
On the second day, the Lord summoned I.B.M. unto His presence.
"There is chaos out there, and the universe is without form and
void. I must correct this and I can use your help. Is there
anything you can do for me?"
"I can take care of form," I.B.M. replied. "Put me in charge of
computers and I will take care of form for you."
The Lord thought that this was good and said, "Let there be
computers. Let I.B.M. have My powers of creation that pertain
to computers and form." Thus, saying, the Lord went off to his
second day's work while I.B.M. created the 1041.
On the third day, while the Lord was out, I.B.M. decided to
subdivide the assigned task. "Let there be systems that make
the computer work and let them be called operating systems. Let
there also be systems that make use of the computer and let them
be called application systems."
But there were no programmers.
The next morning I.B.M. had to give the Lord a status report.
"What did you do yesterday?" the Lord asked.
"I invented the operating system," I.B.M. replied.
"You did?" the Lord shuddered. "Oh dear."
"Yes, I did," I.B.M. confirmed, "but I find I need something you
alone can provide."
"And what is that?"
"I need programmers to use my computer, to operate my operating systems, and to apply my appations."
"That can't be done now," said the Lord, "This is only the
fourth day and there won't be people until the sixth day."
I.B.M. replied, "I need programmers and I need them now. If
they can't be people, they can't be people, but we have to work
this out today."
The Lord sighed, "give me some specifications and I'll see what
I can do."
I.B.M. hastily worked up specs for programmers (are specs ever
anything other than hasty?), and the Lord reviewed them. The
Lord knew the specs weren't sufficient but followed them anyway.
He also made some programmers that did just what programmers
were supposed to do, just to spite I.B.M. The programmers and
I.B.M. spent the rest of the day creating Assembler and FORTRAN.
On the morning of the fifth day, I.B.M. reported to the Lord
once again. "The programmers you created for me have a problem.
They want a programming language that is easy to use and similar
to English. I told them you had cursed English, though I still
don't know why. They wanted me to ask your indulgence on this."
The Lord had cursed English for good reason, but didn't want to
explain this to I.B.M. He said, "Let there be COBOL," and that
was that.
On the status report of the next day, I.B.M. announced that
computers had gone forth and multiplied. Unfortunately, the
computers still weren't big enough or fast enough to do what the
programmers wanted. The Lord liked the idea of going forth and
multiplying, and used the line himself later on that day. This
sixth day, being particularly busy, He declared "Let there be
MVS," and there was MVS.
On the seventh day, God had finished creation and computers had
COBOL and MVS. The Lord and I.B.M. took the day off to go
fishing. I.B.M. hung a sign on the door to help programmers in
this absence.
"IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY TRY AGAIN.
...AND HAVE THE FOLLOWING READY BEFORE CALLING I.B.M."
That was the start, and by some accounts the end, of I.B.M.
documentation.
On the start of the second week the programmers went over
I.B.M.'s cathode ray tube directly to God.
"We have a horrible problem," they complained. "Your users want
systems that perform according to their expectations."
"Users," bellowed the Lord, "who said you should have users?
Users are the difference between good and bad applications, a
function I have reserved unto Myself! Who authorized you to
have users?"
The programmers meekly answered, "Well, I.B.M. ..."
"I.B.M.! You! You did this to my programmers! You gave them
the knowledge of good and evil. For that you shall suffer
through eternity! Let there be competition. Let it be called
Telex, and Amdahl, and C.D.C, and Memorex, and yes, of course,
Digital Equipment."
The Lord went through the alphabet several times.
"With all this competition you shall still suffer the pain of
antitrust legislation all the days of your existence."
This was the start of the second week, and it seems an
appropriate place to conclude our report. In case you missed
something, a summary of key points follows:
1.) Users and their needs are and always have been a
subject of dispute.
2.) Nobody can learn English because it is cursed by
God.
3.) I.B.M. manuals are doubtly cursed and therefore
twice as hard to understand.
4.) Of the programming languages, only COBOL can claim
divine origin.
5.) People are people, but programmers are something
else.
6.) Computers may be a gift from heaven, but there's no
divine help in getting them to work.
7.) Because of I.B.M.'s initial assignment, there are
more forms than anyone knows what to do with.
8.) Finally, chaos was part of the original state of the
universe and not a product of the data processing
industry.
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