Here's a cheery song that was written by top programmer David H. Zobel and circulated on the Internet for more than a while. It's sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, but to sing it you have to know how some programmers pronounce the shifted and control characters on a keyboard. The “^” character above the “6” is often pronounced “hat” because it looks like a little hat. Some people give the name “huh” to “?”, and “wow” to “!”. Both of those are a lot shorter than more conventional names.

The song is called Hatless Atlas and it goes like this.

This song can be enjoyed on more than one level. While the theme is not totally transparent, key elements are revealed. The bare-headed strong man relishes nature (“point at star”), and then enjoys the full hospitality of a tavern (“Wow, open tab at bar is great”). Soon he finds that the question of payment does arise, after all; hence, the veiled reference to the Treasury lending policy (“slash base rate”) and the finality overshadowing that closing lament “bar close BEL”!

I like to think that in the years to come wherever programmers gather in the evening, after the pizza is all eaten and a sufficient quantity of beer has been drunk, a piano may start to play softly in the corner. Quietly, one member of the group will sing, and then more and more of the programming staff will join in. Any systems analysts who haven't yet quaffed themselves unconscious might sway unsteadily with the beat. Soon several choruses of Hatless Atlas will roll lustily around the corners of the room. Old-timers will talk of the great bugs they have overcome and the days of punching clocks, cards, and DOS machines.

Or maybe we'll all stay home and watch reruns of Star Trek: Kirk Violates the Prime Directive with Xena, Warrior Princess instead. Who knows?