Contributors:
Once, in a far-off land, a mighty programmer lived. He was recognised far and wide, his wisdom and skill were unmatched by any and his code was bug-free and fast. He created many powerful pieces of software, which were always well-crafted and potent to the extreme.
However, the village he lived in accepted him only reluctantly. They would peer oddly at his clothes, they would not invite him to parties and the ladies would laugh and scorn at him behind his back. While he took great pride from his software his heart was filled with tinges of misery as he was forced to live alone in his small hut beside the sea.
Despite a great passion for his work, and despite the many expressions of love and admiration he received from far and wide, the programmer craved the acceptance of the villagers. He conceived the idea of a great and wonderous gift for the local inhabitants. A software engineering artifact that was as elegant as it was powerful, as useful as it was unique, and more beautiful than anything he or anyone else had presented before.
This artifact took the form of a crystal ball, but not just any ordinary crystal ball for spying on princesses or hobbits or whatnot, but a crystal ball that would do the programmer's bidding in myriad ways, by casting the right spells.
Eager to show his wonderous new gift to the town's people, he set off to find the mayor. But the mayor refused to see him. He went to the town doctor but he too refused to look at his new gift or even to talk to him about it. And so it went with the barber, the butcher, and everyone else he encountered.
He was full of dispair and was ready to give up when ...
... a hand grenade was seen rolling down the street, wobbling back and forth along its symmetrical axis, bumbling along as if motivated by a foul wind, until it came to rest rather unceremoniously against the programmers left foot.
"Well, now" the programmer said, "that's unusual for a story of this sort".
A crowd was approaching. Not a loud crowd, nor an angry one. Rather unkempt if truth be told. Most had a look of puzzlement on their face and were silent, save for the scritch-scritch-scritch sound made as they scratched their heads wondering just exactly where this was all leading.
What the programmer knew, and what lesser programmers did not, was that the grenade was not a grenade, it was a metaphor. Things change. Products, deadlines, features, cost. They all change. Not only was it a metaphor, but it was also an opportunity. Two for the price of one is a bargain no matter who you ask.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief because metaphors and opportunities are significantly less dangerous than grenades. Not any less pesky for sure, but less likely to cause physical harm.
The programmer looked up, not the least bit surprised by the turn of events....
Talk- The first wiki-story I saw was the one we started on the Alternative Wiki, at http://www.altparty.org/~altwiki/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?action=Browse&id=_One_More_Lie_
. Please feel free to contribute as wiki-stories can keep changing and evolving! --Setok - How do you contribute? Should you add straight onto the end, or freely alter the story to your liking? -FW
- For "One More Lie", the point was to make it a Wiki story. Ie. the whole story can change radically, if someone so decides. Not just adding to the end! Indeed it has done exactly that several times ;-) --Setok
- wtf did i just read?
