I didn't find an English translation of this gem, so I made one myself.
Thanks to this unique exercise you can feel like a real professional programmer without knowledge of any programming languages.
For this exercise you will need:
— Two participants
— A stopwatch
— Sheet of paper
— A pen (pencil won’t do)
One of participants will be “Customer” (Employer), and second will be a “Contractor” (Programmer).
“Customer” gets the stopwatch and a voice, “Contractor” — pen and paper.
Beginning of the exercise:
“Customer” times 10 minutes and gives the following task to “Contractor”: “Draw me, please, a beautiful girl.”
While “Contractor” is drawing, “Customer” should stand over the shoulder and give following requests:
0:30 — May she has a sword in one hand.
1:00 — Two-handed sword, which she is holding with both hands.
1:30 — And give her an UZI in the other hand.
2:00 — Make her a tired traveler, who sat down to rest.
2:30 — Leaning on sword, hence resting.
3:00 — Make her wear a coat, fluttering in the wind.
3:30 — ... And a swimsuit.
4:00 — Better yet, armor!
4:30 — No... A uniform!
5:00 — Remove the coat, it doesn’t go with the uniform.
5:30 — Make her bravely stand on the bridge of the space cruiser.
6:00 — Why she has a sword? Remove that junk. And rework UZI into a blaster!
6:30 — Her hair fluttering in the wind... For appearance, I mean.
7:00 — Blaster doesn’t looks good... Remove it. She is the captain of the ship, she doesn’t need blaster anyway!
7:30 — She needs a Captain’s cap! And neatly coiffed hair!
8:00 — And she should sit in the Captain’s chair!
8:30 — Beautiful, stern and extremely brave pirate ship captain...
9:00 — No, of the Galactic Federation’s combat fleet squadron!
9:30 — ... pointing her finger, giving order to change course.
After 10 minutes have passed, “Customer” should take the “Contractor’s” work, critically examine it and state his impression:
“This is completely not what I wanted! Where is her loyal adjutant? Why doesn’t she have a service weapon? And why she's so unattractive and harsh? I have asked for beautiful girl! And in general, the drawing has many random scribbles... You are a bad programmer, I have turned to you for nought... I will not pay for such trash!”
For more thrills, you can take the “Developers Team” and let them draw together the “big and beautiful landscape” for 10 minutes.
But i mean you can't really blame them if you say wanted to build your house from scratch could you effectivly tell the contracter what you wanted? probably not because you don't know what is all out there(styles,brick,wood, too much stuff). I think programmers are a little hard on customers but i will admit some of the jokes are funny:)