The Programmer Who Couldn't Build It

My father-in-law is a programmer. He is insanely gifted. We booted Plan 9 together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build it today. I will never forget his answer... “We can’t, we don’t know how to do it.”

A text meme shows a programmer’s father-in-law being asked how much it would cost to rebuild Plan 9, an operating system they previously booted together. His answer is that they cannot build it because they do not know how, making fun of programmers’ tendency to use impressive but obscure software without fully understanding its internals. It is sent as a reaction to overconfident technical claims or programming absurdity. EN: A text meme shows a programmer’s father-in-law being asked how much it would cost to rebuild Plan 9, an operating system they previously booted together. His answer is that they cannot build it because they do not know how, making fun of programmers’ tendency to use impressive but obscure software without fully understanding its internals. It is sent as a reaction to overconfident technical claims or programming absurdity.

• @gentoomemes / 5339 2023-07-18