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30 Of The Most Hilarious Memes And Jokes About All Things Programming And Computer Science (Best Of All Time)
Every occupation has its anecdotes and inside jokes. Mathematicians joke about algebra, statistics, calculus, etc. Teachers have memes about what it's like to shape young minds and be criminally underappreciated in society. And programmers, the most tech-savvy of careers, have their specific humor as well.
The subreddit r/ProgrammerHumor is where coders and seasoned developers come to share funny content about their everyday lives. We've featured this community many times on Bored Panda over the years, so, this is the best-of-all-time edition. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced programmer whose impeccably clean code can make grown men weep, I'm sure you'll find something for yourself down below!
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#1
Robert T 1 year ago (edited)
2024 edition. In the absence of a Reject All cookie setting, go through and untick all 20 "legitimate interest" boxes. There is no such thing as a legimitate interest in my web browser you nosey ****s!
Raphapablap 1 year ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one that does this. Now it's a matter of principle.
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#2
Arthur Waite 1 year ago
But remember: web developers don't work for you . . They work for the villains who pay them to drive you crazy.
Olga Sushko 1 year ago
Web developers have nothing to do with it, it's a marketer's decision. And if it's there, it means it brings money. Source: I'm a marketer
#3
Shaggy 1 year ago (edited)
X1000... Thinking about what happens if there is an outage scares the c**p out of me. I mean, how will I be able to get the beer out of the smart fridge if it is locked in the smart garage inside the smart house if the inets go down??
Donna Peluda 1 year ago
More then the Outage, it's th IN-age that worries me. The more devices on you WiFi or ner work the more ways there is to enter.
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Heffalump 1 year ago (edited)
This is such a relief. I thought I was weird for being a software engineer yet avoiding tech like the plague.
Sue User 1 year ago
Now try explaining this to an enthusiast, or even nontechie colleagues. Then they think you dont really know tech. I know tech, and i know humans.
Load More Replies... Pandemonium 1 year ago
Me, but no gun. At the end of an AWS training at my company there was a test all employees took. I won an Alexa but I don't think the trainers appreciated the way I declined the prize. Earned points with my co-workers though. When presented with the choice, choose analog!
Casey Payne 1 year ago
I already have enough paranoia concerning my neighbors, my neighborhood and the random mice that come to my apartment just to die. I don't need to suspect my lightbulbs of betrayal or question the motives of my speaker system.
3 Otters 🦦 1 year ago
My washer and dry require updates. They also tell me about left laundry. I hate it but wasn’t smart enough to check when I bought them. I refuse to get a smart thermostat as I don’t think the gas or electric companies to control my house temperature. I have dumb everything except my stupid washer and dryer.
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Rebecca McManus 1 year ago
Keep getting into an argument with the bank because they seem to be most insistent that I install their app, they get quite offended when I respond with "I work in IT, that's never going to happen "
Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
I was in my car with my grandson, having a conversation. Out of the blue, Alexa piped up from my phone and said words to the effect of "I didn't quite catch that."
The r/ProgrammerHumor subreddit has over four million members. That's not really that surprising, given that as of 2024, there are around 28.7 million programmers around the world. The average salary for a software developer in the U.S. was about 108k in 2021, and the average yearly salary of a senior executive developer in the U.S. is about 225k in 2024.
The subreddit also has a few rules people have to follow if they want to be a part of the community. Posters have to share content that is funny or relatable to programmers, students, and anyone who aspires to be a programmer. "If somebody who has nothing to do with programming can see the humor in your post in the same way that a programmer would, then it's not programmer humor," the group's rules state.
#4
Wondering Alice 1 year ago
I'm below average in terms of Tec ability and shamefully make my husband do it all. However, when he said I needed to get the basics of online banking, it didn't take me too long. Anyone trying to navigate consular websites want to join me in finding them hard? (Might be UK specific) Although to be fair, it's no harder than pre internet dealings with consulate service.
Load More Replies... Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
Working in web support in the 2010s, I used to explain to users that if they wanted certain features to work on the website, they must install Java. Try explaining Java to the average retiree.
#5
B Hobbs 1 year ago
Many university professors have little experience in the "real" world. These appear to be valid answers based on experience.
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Robert T 1 year ago
There is one step. We even had a university textbook on it. It was (genuinely) by Coad and Yourdon. :D
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
This book is from way before my time, but I do own it. mfe_spine-...b75013.jpg 
#6
Me. Just Me. 1 year ago
I've been saying this for a while. Being able to get AI to produce exactly what you want means you being able to describe exactly what you want. This is why most of these chat bits go off the rails after about the third interaction.
T. 1 year ago
I'm currently trying to build a website in HTML (miniwiki) with chatGPT. It does work but it's a hell lot of work when you barely know how code works.
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SlothyK8 1 year ago
OMG, my life story. I'm a business analyst...it's my job to get an end user to describe what they want and then translate it for the devs. AI cannot replace me! HAHAHAHAHA!
James016 1 year ago
Our business analysts are human Rosetta Stones. Also getting anyone in the business to accurately define what they are after is basically necromancy.
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Certainly not Dan 1 year ago
When AI figures out what ‘wow factor’ is then all creative industries are f****d
The subreddit is also very clear about what programming-related content is and what it isn't. In short, tech humor doesn't equal programmer humor. "Operating system jokes, "Why does my printer never work" are all things related to technology, but not something that requires programming knowledge to see the humor in," the moderators clarify.
Indeed, not all people who work in tech are programmers. People can say they work in tech and be IT project managers, UX/UI designers, citizen developers, information architects, and AI operators. People often assume that programmers are just IT guys. r/ProgrammerHumor usually doesn't accept posts if they don't take a programmer to understand.
#7
Me. Just Me. 1 year ago
Programming. A profession where programmers are literally as shocked as the rest of us when it actually works.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
I had that yesterday. I made some changes to the code that massages the data behind some Excel pivot tables and they didn't break. My first reaction is that I must have done something wrong
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Phoenix Burn 1 year ago (edited)
If it works first time I'm binning it and starting again.... because it is almost certainly due to the one set of inputs it actually works with, but which no user will ever discover.
#9
Immortal Emperor Paradox 1 year ago
These comments do not make sense until you actually go for job hunting. Such language is usually used by startups and companies that want to squeeze out as much as they can from the candidate. It sounds horrible but in reality it's the norm. Working 12 hours every day is also normal, given you're not working in an MNC. (No experience working there yet) I'd love to hear about other people's perspectives.
Another interesting rule at r/ProgrammerHumor is to title posts in camelCase to improve readability. However, that can be a topic of contention in some programmer circles: some prefer to use underscores for identifiers. Luckily, there's even some scientific research to back up the superiority of camelCase.
#10
Kiera Mortensen 1 year ago
i remember this. my c++ teacher couldn't figure out what i had done wrong until he had been home for serveral hours and was about to go to bed. I had a semicolon instead a colon. 2x2 once again equaled 4
#11
Robert T 1 year ago
I remember when I first started programming (aged 11) and the computer came up with the error "TYPE MISMATCH AT LINE 20". So I literally typed MISMATCH in a line 20. It didn't help! LOL
Bruce Mardle 1 year ago
Probably because there are other ways of making the program's syntax valid, and the computer can't know which you want.
censorshipsucks 1 year ago
my worst is its fuss about indents. f-off. just use open/close brackets like a normal language.
Highfalutin Heron 1 year ago
That's why TECO is a great first programming language for kids. Anything they type is a valid program. It might also give them nightmares, but hey can't win em all
#12
Tim Fawcett 1 year ago
No - in a real time time system like life, poop is handled as an exception thrown when necessary (insert throwing your poop joke here) so does not need to handled in the main loop. Of course if you don't include a throw(Poop) and catch(Poop) handler then you will end up with a massive core dump
lluf eman 1 year ago
This piece of code is correct I will not agree with “Devpuns” because in my opinion this activity “poop” is included in the set of concepts associated with “code()”.My observations indicate that the place and range of activities performed during programming are unlimited for the programmer. (In other words, programming can often also take place in the bathroom).Nevertheless, my observation may be related to the fact that I am not a programmer.
Those who are pro-underscores claim that they resemble natural writing more; the underscores are stand-ins for spaces, making it easier for the eye to follow code. However, underscore haters say that it's just plain ugly: just compare "this_is_code" with "thisIsCode" and you'll see which one's way more elegant.
#13
Robert T 1 year ago
If that 10 minute task has to be done every day, then damn right I'm spending 10 days automating it!
T. 1 year ago
If you need all 80 working hours in these ten days, you'd be on top of your investment after 480 working days or roughly 2 years.
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#14
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Welp, I'm going to lunch. I'm going out for some dead beef.
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Robert T 1 year ago
Googling is definitely a skill. Finding the answer to why one niggly software issue is occuring in amongst thousands of potential hits, frequently ones that say "I have this problem", but they never come back with an answer!
Sue User 1 year ago
Huge respect to the the ones who come back and say" i figured it out and here is the answer in case anyone else needs it"
Load More Replies... FunK_One 1 year ago
I believe 100% that it's better to know where to find information than it is to know that information. Laws change, procedures change, equipment may change. Knowing where to find that updated statute, process, or manual will serve you much better that lamenting about how things change so fast!
Researchers actually have done a study on which system is the most efficient. They observed 135 programmers and non-programmers who had to identify a matching phrase written in both systems. They found that camelCase has a higher (51.5%) probability of correctness, but it takes 13.5% longer to read than an underscore identifier.
#16
Dragons Exist 1 year ago
I once had a model called "on" and eventually found out that it was short for "dragon", because "drag" had already been taken
MaximumKarmaSaint 1 year ago (edited)
onEvent ("feet", "click", function( ){ banUser(1000); }); (EDIT: Sorry if I typed this wrong, I've never actually thought of using a ban function before. Also yes I tried to make it separate lines, yes BP didn't let me.)
#17
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
No, you don't think about your code when driving home. Hold off until you are in the shower
lluf eman 1 year ago
How can you not think about the code when you are driving home ? if the system that operates the brakes in the car is also written by some programmer!!!?
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#18
And what about the tabs vs. spaces debate? Well, maybe people don't dump their significant others over it like Richard Hendricks did in HBO's Silicon Valley, it's still a Holy War for some coders. Google Developer Advocate Felipe Hoffa actually did some research into this and found which programmers use more often.
#19
Remi (He/Him) 1 year ago
Closely related to when a small change to a simple card game resulted in a nifty computer rebooting tool. 😅
MaximumKarmaSaint 1 year ago
As someone invested in the game, people tried this and found out that not only is the coconut completely fine and can be deleted without problem, however, they found out that ANOTHER file (most likely a cow) WILL stop the game from running, and no one knows why. A guy named Shuonic did a video on it, called "How many files can you delete before TF2 breaks?"
Laura Gillette 1 year ago
Ah yes, the trusty load-bearing jpg of a coconut, who hasn't used one of those
#20
Immortal Emperor Paradox 1 year ago
Do not do this. You'll be sued and punished instead since you've added malicious code. Try solving the issue using other means.
María Hermida 1 year ago
Until the client pays for it, the web is mine and I can do what I want with it
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Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
So you're diligent about checking for airplanes, and a submarine gets you
Hoffa analyzed a billion files from the top 400,000 projects on GitHub in 2016. He found that spaces outpace tabs in every major programming language except C and Google's Go. The 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey also revealed that 40.7% of programmers use tabs, 41.8% use spaces, and 17.5% prefer to use both.
#22
#23
#24
Interestingly, there's also a financial component to this. Apparently, coders who use spaces for indentation make more money, too. Even if they have the same amount of experience, those who use tabs make around $15k a year less than those who use spaces. Still, there's no guarantee that you're magically going to start earning more just because you started using spaces instead of tabs.
#25
Rich Bayless 1 year ago
You can always use UTC instead ... problem solved ... and now nobody has any clue when that log entry actually happened! 🤪
2bwhctmvgn 1 year ago
I recently encountered a system that used the time format "2011-08-12T20:17:46.384Z". This is ISO8601 and the "Z" explicitly means "UTC". You can specify other timezones, or leave that last part off and be indefinite about the time zone. However, the times were referencing local time. So it explicitly said it was in UTC and it was not. This is a commercial product.
Load More Replies... Highfalutin Heron 1 year ago
If you want to break your brain, put multiple "TIMEZONE=" lines in a crontab, especially with timezones that have very different notions about daylight savings time
A very recent academic study set out to explore what makes programmers laugh. What's more fascinating, is that they used the r/ProgrammerHumor subreddit as the main source for their research. Its findings are not yet available, but in their abstract, the researchers state that the most popular submissions are those made in winter months in the northern hemisphere at 2-3 pm on the weekends, and are related to the "superiority and incongruity theories of humor."
#28
lluf eman 1 year ago
It works only on Tuesday, but it seems to be a pretty decent result, because it means that it works properly on 52 (the number of Tuesdays in a year) days in a year, which is a very good result for a computer program, taking into account the fact that various studies indicate that Windows works on average up to 3.5 days without any error.
Donna Peluda 1 year ago
It works every day, It's not accurate 6 days out of 7. But never more then 4 days out.
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#30
Talis 1 year ago
Being a senior myself, I think it's rude not to help other colleagues, especially new ones that still have a lot to learn. In my experience, they are doing their best to get up to speed. And in return, one gets valuable insights from a still "untainted" perspective.
Tim Douglass 1 year ago
When I was a senior I was nice to the junior devs because they would bring me food to bribe me to help them.
censorshipsucks 1 year ago
I am so glad that I do not have to deal with this anymore, coding AIs do the same job without the "RTFM" and "duhhhh" comments.
So, coder Pandas, what do you think about this best-of-all-time selection from the r/ProgrammerHumor subreddit? Don't forget to upvote your favorite funny pics so they can make it to the top of the list! And, in the meantime, if you want more programmer humor, check out our previous posts on the community here, here, here, here, and right here!
#34
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Already coming to grips with the badly worded user requirement spec
#35
Annita Stephanou 1 year ago
I am an electrician and yesterday I spent ten minutes complaining about what the architects were thinking....
Load More Replies... Donna Peluda 1 year ago
101 of auto mechanic. Open the hood, shake head and say "who the *** did this? It going to cost you now"
#45
#50
#52
Donna Peluda 1 year ago
I wish our company would do this..most people in development could be substituted with a few automatic email forwarding rules. We recenly had a config page that for some reason wouldn't tab between fields. I reported the bug back and my direct manager couldn't understand what the problem was. It took 2 months and a by chance chat on teams (I'm in a different country) regarding a translation for the Spanish version when I mentioned the issue to in the group. 2 mins later it was fixed.
#55
#56
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
My keywords were always "vbscript beefs regular". I always remembered the "beefs" part
#59
#60
Dawn Thomas-Cameron 1 year ago
We have a production app that we no longer have source code for. Don’t touch it!
#63
QuantumCatnip 1 year ago
I spent 30 minutes of me exam staring at one line unable to figure out why the answer it was returning wasn't doubled. It took me until the very last second to realize I didn't add * 2.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
I doubt that programmers would even recognize that the word was misspelled in the first place. As evidenced by the word "world" in the above screenshot
#64
#66
Robert T 1 year ago
One of the many reasons why we don't give direct access to the UAT servers to the developers. If you can't deploy it without footling with the config files, it ain't going anywhere near production. Config changes must be tested, just like code.
James016 1 year ago
When I first joined my company, the devs had admin rights to the servers and they would put things in random places. Nothing documented at all. My manager and I put a stop to that quickly. Then after one dev left it turned out he was running a production web application on from a spare laptop on his desk. Naturally none of us knew about it until people started screaming after it went offline.
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#68
Tim Douglass 1 year ago
I was an editor on a series of programming books back in the early 90s. On the second or third book (each for a different language, all by the same author) I saw a code example that had a significant syntax error, obviously one that had been carried over from the previous book and language. A bit of checking and I realized that most of the code examples were incorrect, they had just been roughly converted from the language of the first book. Much arguing with the author ensued, along the lines of "I wrote it, it must work. I know better than some young punk. Print it as I wrote it!" In the end, thanks to the series editor, I was allowed to pull all the code examples and test them and correct them. It turned out that he actually only knew the language for the first book. There were a *lot* of issues in that series. Made myself a lot of work there.
#69
My “web server” Halloween costume— 404 champagne not found!
#72
#74
Farah the Turtle 1 year ago
OMG! THIS IS TOO TRUE! Usually Im listening to TXT or skz, and then a bug comes up, so I keep tryna fix it but its too hard so I go "hold on a minute.." And I pause the music
#75
Seán Hannan 1 year ago
There are no dramatic pauses programmed into the "behind the scenes" code.
#78
#82
Arabiata Arabiata 1 year ago
A grown-up, responsible programmer never reads documentation. Reading documentation is the weapon of the weaks.
#84
#85
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Assuming you are using Windows, the development environment is Notepad
#87
#90
Seen at computer lab.
#91
Seán Hannan 1 year ago
They are all brackets. These ( ) are round brackets (or just brackets). These [ ] are square brackets. These { } are curly brackets.
CursedEclipse 1 year ago
i call ( ) parentheses, [ ] squarentheses, { } brackets lol
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#92
Charles Jacks 1 year ago
Anyone that can debug or modify APL is an alien.
Load More Replies... Arthur Waite 1 year ago
I was there when 1410 Autocoder was replaced by 360 Assembler. Cobol was heaven!
#96
You didn’t know me 2 mins ago 1 year ago
Oh those are scenes from Lost! It’s a great show, you guys should watch it!
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Chris Robertson 1 year ago
Not original, but it does sum up computing: if the real world worked like computers, every second Thursday when you tied your shoelaces, they'd expolde. Except sometimes they wouldn't.
Binky Melnik 1 year ago (edited)
I’m laughing but with sad tears running down my face. Either that or I’m crying while smiling. 😀😰
Load More Replies... Gracie Mae 1 year ago
trip down memory lane--got my start in IT because I kept calling the programmer to let him know of issues with his POS prgs. It was proprietary & all in-house with 1 programmer. Got to the point where they would come to me asking me to 'break' it. I happily obliged. Years later, I started working toward programming--ended up quiting & changing to a career in law enforcement (with a big pay cut)...much less stressful! Of course that was 25+ yrs ago--not sure I'd make that same move today! (Happily retired)
Chris Robertson 1 year ago
Not original, but it does sum up computing: if the real world worked like computers, every second Thursday when you tied your shoelaces, they'd expolde. Except sometimes they wouldn't.
Binky Melnik 1 year ago (edited)
I’m laughing but with sad tears running down my face. Either that or I’m crying while smiling. 😀😰
Load More Replies... Gracie Mae 1 year ago
trip down memory lane--got my start in IT because I kept calling the programmer to let him know of issues with his POS prgs. It was proprietary & all in-house with 1 programmer. Got to the point where they would come to me asking me to 'break' it. I happily obliged. Years later, I started working toward programming--ended up quiting & changing to a career in law enforcement (with a big pay cut)...much less stressful! Of course that was 25+ yrs ago--not sure I'd make that same move today! (Happily retired)
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