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Original song Smuggler's Blues
Original artist Glenn Frey
Filk author Anon, and Mark E. Sunderlin
Intro  

The Programmer's Blues

by Robert J. Woodhead
(Cleaned up by Dr. Megabyte)
with apologies to Glen Frye

There's trouble in the data now, I can feel it in my bones,
I had a premonition that I should'nt code alone,
I had the new dos loaded but I didn't think it'd fry,
Then everything exploded and 2 weeks work blew sky-high!

So baby here's a printout and a keyboard for your hand,
And here's a little floppy, now do it just the way we planned,
You debug for 20 days and I'll pay you 20 grand!

I'm sorry it went down like this, but some chip had to fuse,
It's the typing of the language, It's the Programmer's Blues...

Programmer's Blues...

Coder's and the Analyst's, Hackers and Sysops,
Bad comments and strange bomboffs, and the bugs nobody copped,
No matter if it's Pascal, Basic or Cobol,
You've got to carry manuals, there's no online help at all!

It's lots of rotten coffee, and lot's of lousy food,
Every variable name is dangerous, it might have been pre-used,
It's the lure of relaxed typing, it's so easy to be crude!

Perhaps you'll understand it better, when you see my tools,
It's the ultimate enhancement, it's the Programmer's Blues!

Programmer's Blues...

You see it in their memos, you read them every day,
They say you have to fix those bugs, but they just don't go away,
No matter how hard you work, it just won't run OK,
You bury them in subroutines, but you know they're here to stay!

You hope that none'll notice them, but they always seem to do,
You beg for Beta testing, maybe one will give a clue,
Down from the office of your manager, you learn the heat's on you..

Heat's on you..

It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse,
It's policies of debugging, it's the Programmer's Blues...

Programmer's Blues!

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