The Perfect Programmer

Last Updated on July 22, 2025 by David Both

August 10, 2014

I found this little bit of poetry in a pile of very old documents I was sorting through today. It was printed by a dot matrix printer on greenbar, fanfold paper. It has the command ?DATA LIST at the beginning.

“No program is that perfect, they said with a shrug,
the client is happy, what is one little bug?”

But he was determined, the others went home,
he dug out the flowchart, deserted and alone.

The night passed to morning, the room was cluttered
with memory dumps and punch cards, “I’m close,” he muttered.

He chained morning’s cold coffee, logic, deduction,
“I’ve got it,” he cried, “Just change one instruction.”

He changed two, then three more, and as year followed year,
all strangers would ask, “Is that guy still here?”

He died at the console, of hunger and thirst,
next day he was buried, face down, 9 edge first.

And his wife, through her tears, accepted his fate.
“He’s not really gone, he’s just working late.”