Big Rewrite (American Pie parody)

A musical parody of Don McLean's "American Pie" about the history of programming and software development.

[@nerdy_crawfish]

"Though no-one's sure what devops really means," As someone in 'devops' that one cut deep.

[@catalyzt]

What is devops

[@nerdy_crawfish]

@@catalyzt No one really knows and that's the joke. The most common answer is 'a set of practices for continuous software deployment that combines development (dev) and IT operations (ops) into one group. What that actually translates to at each company is so different that it's really just a buzzword without much meaning other than development and IT are now 'one team'. What it means at my company - I'm the guy who makes the code that tests, deploys, and maintains the rest of the code.

[@TremereTT]

@@nerdy_crawfish Sounds like what Inhouse SOA is. Basically you have the IT developing and/or linking the services to match the enterprises flow of information. It also encompasses a change in view on the IT department, by the accounting department, as not only a cost centre but also a profit centre and innovator inside the company that improves and creates products and services for the customers. I know in Germany it made the tracking of packages by DHL-customers possible, and as far as I know devops of DHL simply invented that service and gave DHL a competitive edge dispite beeing the most expensive package service in Germany.

[@ceejay0137]

Just found this after seeing your DMCA video. As the former owner of a ZX Spectrum, and a big fan of Don McLean, I was nearly helpless with laughter most of the way through! A superb parody, and very funny in its own right. It deserves far more views, and I will spread the link around.

[@AndersJackson]

Parody, are you saying my life was a Parody? This is a description of my life, from 8 bit BASIC computers, through building my Uni. first Internet network, admin and writing on a web server in 1992-1993, and up to now. :-D

[@jonathanwilson95]

Pure genius! "I couldn't get tech support on the phone. That's the point when I wish I'd known, they'd done, a big rewrite".

This is like a history of programming and infrastructure :) Very nice!

[@AndersJackson]

Been there, done all those thing.

[@trulyspinach]

This is such a masterpiece and deserves more views

[@englishmotherfucker1058]

A story of cs told with a story of rock and roll, even some of time periods overlap. This is beautyful

[@MJ-xl5jz]

Other songs of yours had more repetition in the lyrics, which made the humor more short-lived IMO, but this one is amazing

[@KiSmooth88]

This song describes my hole career as a software engineer :D

[@Jeskelech]

Oddly this song taught me something more about how to handle stored values and loops in assembler... Call it provoking "Thinking outside of the box"

[@SolathPrime]

What :surprised:

[@MSBWilson]

Case in point from my brother: "For the [brand x] plugins, we autogenerate some C++ code from an XML parameter definition using PHP, and do some other autogeneration of a defaults file in JSON using grunt (Javascript) from the same XML. Oh, and then there are the ant scripts (whose format is XML) to run builds in Jenkins. And our code assets archival system in Python."

[@swyxTV]

you are insanely talented, i sing and code and would love to collab with you someday

[@susmitvengurlekar]

It's gonna compile first time. It's gonna compile first time. It's gonna compile first time. Dream of everyone. It's gonna compile first time

[@acboesefrau7729]

oh yes..... I currently have to maintain 11 year old legacy code written by someone under hight preassure, who was never given time for refactoring and currently unreachable in parental leave. My team lead always says "Don't refactor, it will crash!!" Yea but I always look like Winnie Pooh in this video and refactor to have a minimal chance in understanding what happens in a class with 4000 lines of code or a method containing a switch statement with more than 120 cases..... AHJRHRGHRGHRGHGHGHGHGHHGHHHH!!!!!!

[@smallsnippets]

I have to dive into 20 years old code. Written by 3 (or more?) people, which all were no programmers, 2 left already, the one left over is only available rarely, behaves like the allmighty, is not very communicative, and the answers from one week and the next week differ significantly. No documentation, no tests. I have to fix the problems, but also should not change the code (or not without tests). But if I find aproblem -> "why didn't you fixed it already?!". Thats so insane. And it's a lot of code (and ugly). People have to go back to the langauage of the 90ies. But Microservices is a hype word. "Let's just do microservices - then all problems are gone!"-attitude. But it will be the same code on all machines, because it's a big blob, which you can't tear apart. And tearing apart is not allowed. The left-over guy from the 20-years-of-evolution monster would become pissed off. So: how to make things better while insisting to refuse change? Well, "let's just pick some hype words and use them often."

[@masonwheeler6536]

My current employer is running a system that was originally written 40+ years ago in Turbo Pascal. A lot of the existing Delphi code dates back that far, as do many architectural decisions. Being a maintainer of that codebase is Fun™, especially when one of the old-time developers is now our project manager and rigidly insists that customers _just love_ certain UI conventions that date back to that era, only minimally updated to run under Windows rather than DOS.

[@stack.1]

It's going to compile first time 👌

[@SnowyPup]

and it indeed did not compile first time.

[@rogervanbommel1086]

Well, node always compiles, since it’s interpreted

[@paulvorderegger1522]

@@rogervanbommel1086 Id rather say it doesnt compile at all...

Woaaah man!! I was listening to this like you're describing my life!!!! Impressive!!! Love it!!

[@haulin]

I kind of expected in the end him switching from class-based to sustainable farming methods, growing produce instead of codebases, and rather than the big rewrite managing the spinach blight.

[@jimf671]

It'll never survive Carrington-2, so best reduce it to something that would run on a 1990s washing machine. (Need this song in MP3 and loaded free on every programmable device sold in the world!)

[@devserendipity3063]

I have actually learned a lot about coding here. and got amused thank you!

[@lukecole5056]

Love it! You should allow subscribers to create subtitles for this... I'd love to show this to my dad (also a developer) but he won't understand it in english haha..

[@paolo-e-basta]

thanks for writing my bio, and the story goes on! i'm laughing like never before, thanks buddy

[@mrmotion7942]

CS moves so fast - VM's are old hat now with docker being all the rage

[@AndersJackson]

Docker, you mean the tech that IBM used back in end of 1960:th beginning of 1970:th? It will blow ower soon, as will functional programming, like the Lisp, worlds first REPL and third high level language.

"It didn't work in IE5" kkkkkkkkkkkkkk The web developers hell, IE! uheuheuheuhheueuheu

[@AndersJackson]

I sooo recognize this. Thanks. And yes, all the time is was supposed to compile at first time. :-)

[@vulcanfeline]

pfft. i can't even get javascript to compile first time (yes, i do actually know javascript is interpreted) ps) sorry for the necro but i couldn't help it

[@DavidRodenas]

*Snif* A lot of sentimental stuff in this video *Snif*

[@TheGreeeen]

That's it. I'm gonna do a big rewrite!

[@adab788]

Wow, this is crazy good! Why is it so unknown?

[@kissamakis]

Wonderful song. 1:34 "Wait, that's not C64 but THEC64 Mini - an emulator box w/o a functional keyboard. Pretty convincing shell, apparently." 2:11 "That's probably MSX-BASIC or SV-BASIC in that code list; LINE, STRIG, PUT SPRITE and the typeface are telling."

[@Sariden]

Oh man, this brings me back. Bloody briliiant!

[@ucrand]

Unix scene, with VMS or PDP - email and a shell ;)

[@AndersJackson]

@@ucrand I set up the Unix and email and shell at the university I worked at, about 40 years ago, or something.

[@balsoft01]

Oh my my, this here Anakin guy May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

[@DimitarVeljanovski-f9v]

From the perspective of someone who has been around the industry for a couple of years, climbed all the way to senior level, it gives me shivers how close this is to the actual experience.

[@smallsnippets]

Yes, there is legacy code with a design that is byzantine. But there is also a lot of code without something that can be called design (at least nothing you can point at - it is (or was) in the head of the developer(s)). Driven by evolution from day to day. No tests, no documentation, plus ugly code. A byzantine design, something to review, would be resort. The real world is more ugly than Dylan Beattie can imagine. (And the crap is called "our flagship" wtf!)

[@rogervanbommel1086]

Certainly, wrote some of such code for a project of mine

[@fredrikolsson8055]

Haha, nice one! See you in Malmö next weekend, cheers :)

[@futuza]

Gives me great nostalgia

[@maxraul]

This song reaches my heart, please open a Patreon account to produce more songs

[@cyharyanto]

Summarizing 50 years of software engineering..... better than any book 🎉

[@keshav2136]

This song makes me sad because those technologies has became history and none of it can be found now

[@barneylaurance1865]

Hey, I'm still writing in PHP and Node. And I want to learn Rust.

[@futuza]

​@@barneylaurance1865but we all know that we'll have to do a big rewrite eventually and they'll disappear, replaced by something new

[@arnbrandy]

Did I feel emotional with the Turbo Pascal screenshot? Maybe, maybe not, we will never know.

[@obnoxint]

Reddit brought me here. How do you gild a KZbin video?

[@luiswittrock223]

I got started on a 64bit windows 10 system with a full blown python IDE lol

[@rogervanbommel1086]

Yea,same, am now also working on way lower level stuff though(own Operating System)

[@paulvorderegger1522]

@@rogervanbommel1086 Your own OS? But not in Python pls.... How s it going these days? R u still in on it?

[@rogervanbommel1086]

@@paulvorderegger1522 of course not c/c+ +

[@paulvorderegger1522]

@@rogervanbommel1086 Oh, so you're actually serious about it? R U making a Linux or Unix based OS or completely from scratch? What is it for and what are the differences?

[@rogervanbommel1086]

@@paulvorderegger1522 that’s not true, a project for learning that I started working on and am now procrastinating on because of school stuffs

[@coopersmill]

Ah the commodore, Assembler and the optocoupler... Reusing electrons and taking a nap waiting for the run to finish.

[@anonymoust8818]

Today I learned Dylan Beattie existed. Holy hell, his DP parodies are funny - Nerd Card required.

[@pdecker]

Somehow, I didn't see that last thumbs up coming. Good one!

[@mystryx7931]

Sad this will be wasted. "When I was your age" *insert blank look

[@dr.nobody3357]

You rhymed Byzantine... *** bravo sir

[@TangoMikeLima]

What is the typeface used for the first part, with just the text? (And why is not the same used for the rest then..)

[@dr.nobody3357]

It's gonna compile the first time.... rofl!!

[@davidthornbury881]

Universities could use this. Absolutely amazing.

[@ZefugiLive]

You're my favourite band. ❤

[@danitrabas]

A very inspiring version. Thanx a lot!

[@JeffBigler]

Commodore 64 checking in.

[@JKLKJ]

Nice stuff.

[@AmaleeWilson]

Incredible

[@Dillyj1]

Brilliant

[@Max-fe4ky]

Awesome!

[@VictorCruz-lp4we]

Awesome!

[@cy8berpunk831]

Awwwwesome.

[@opensoccer]

The cartoon in the background at 5:53 kzbin.info/www/bejne/mGOpXnd_qb2nkNU

[@opensoccer]

And a second one by the same guy. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKvOg4mwmM50kMk

[@LiEnby]

"I wrote my Hello World in Assembler, no function calls, no do or while" call instruction: am i a joke to you?

[@stack.1]

The memes here OMG

[@victoriastamps3948]

Just perfect!

[@feicodeboer]

Spot on ...

[@retronukleon]

Just Brilliant.

[@slauge]

Awesome!

[@santonopoulou]

hahaha this is amazing!

[@omartechnologies]

Brilliant song. The lyrics capture perfectly the sentiments of the original song and of this beautiful community of developers who cut their teeth in the 80s and 90s and are still surviving in the lands of npm -i and terraform..

[@Ornithopter470]

structures don't change.

[@omartechnologies]

@@Ornithopter470 care to elaborate?

[@Ornithopter470]

@@omartechnologies data structures don't change, and a lot of younger devs who don't have technical degrees haven't learned as much about data structures. It's fundamentals versus learning a new tech stack.

[@omartechnologies]

@@Ornithopter470 okay but what has that got to do with my comment?

[@todd.mitchell]

This is so great. Who else wrote TI BASIC on a TI-99/4A?

[@paulbennett6094]

Is there enough of these for an album? Maybe you'll get played on Radio Caroline.

[@UnidayStudio]

This is gold

[@HihiouZabimaru182]

I had no idea Mr Burns got his start working as a programmer. Learn something new every day I guess.

[@TremereTT]

I mean the INT 21h can very well be seen as a function call...

[@jhoughjr1]

this is seriously life. FUcking excellent . My career in a song.

[@janlundeen417]

Awesome! I'll never think of Bon Jovi the same way.

[@richardgowan2230]

That's wonderful. Thanks.

[@ucrand]

Stolen code at 3:20 -- AND -- it did not work in IE5

[@UTCUTR]

I love you for this, omg yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@andrewmartin3671]

Some of these lines hit hard for a parody.

[@laurenhimbeault8434]

This is out of control amazing

[@jamessandy6663]

can we get this on spotify?

[@DylanBeattie]

Sure - you get permission from Don McLean's lawyers, and I'll be only too happy to do the rest. 😉

[@jamessandy6663]

@@DylanBeattie haha fair enough. Anyway, thanks for the great track!

[@ShaheenGhiassy]

My god this is good!

[@p4ticks1ck98]

love this song

[@matschbirne5363]

great work

[@jsingh5075]

Kudos!

[@loveyeshua6915]

Awesome!!!

[@kimmilliner7300]

Love it

[@prayk11]

Love it!

[@HariGtt]

This one is crazy good!

[@nicopauer6398]

2:11 what language is that?

[@mrmotion7942]

Hey. I think it is BBC Basic

[@billyacuna5701]

Hermosa canción

[@a_guy_in_orange7230]

I hardly know code and found this hilarious. . . .yes i did come here from r/ProgramerHumor why do you ask?

[@To1ne]

Can we have the lyrics in the description?