Wednesday, November 03, 2004

A proper burial for old code

A little humor on this day, perhaps, in what the programmers at LexisNexis do with old code:
    Among the tiny graves on Blocker Hill, the wind echoes with the tortured cries of computer programmers. Beneath the eight grave markers, and perhaps in a rumored unmarked grave nearby, lie reams of paper printouts of code for software that has left this mortal operating system.

    The cemetery is a quirky tradition among the programmers at LexisNexis ... Rather than simply delete programs that are retired or replaced, they print them out for a proper send-off — not always with fond regards.

    Workers had to "drive a stake" through the heart of a poorly performing program named CCI, which received an ignominious burial beneath an emblem of a pig.
[AP via Niall Kennedy]

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