19 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
19 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
Real World
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n. 1. Those institutions at which programming may be used in the same
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sentence as FORTRAN , COBOL , RPG , IBM , DBASE , etc. Places where programs
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do such commercially necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as
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generating payroll checks and invoices. 2. The location of non-programmers
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and activities not related to programming. 3. A bizarre dimension in which
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the standard dress is shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours
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are defined as 9 to 5 (see code grinder ). 4. Anywhere outside a university.
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Poor dear, she's left EPFL and gone into the Real World. Used pejoratively
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by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking of someone who has
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entered the Real World is not unlike speaking of a deceased person. It is
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also noteworthy that on the campus of Cambridge University in England, there
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is a gaily-painted lamp-post which bears the label REALITY CHECKPOINT. It
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marks the boundary between university and the Real World; check your notions
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of reality before passing. This joke is funnier because the Cambridge campus
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is actually coextensive with the center of Cambridge town. See also fear and
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loathing , mundane , and uninteresting.
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