"The Software Blues"
                                by  Fred Barrett


                               Hey diddle, diddle,
                             The bug's in the middle,
                       Of my interrupt service routine...

                            My stack has been popped,
                              My constants are not,
                      My buffers are pulling my strings...

                             The time that it took,
                            To compile all this gook,
                    Was productive, at least so it seemed...

                              It gave me a chance,
                              To rebuild the shell,
                    From the last time we blew the machine...

                               We hope to be done,
                               In a matter of days,
                       Version 12 of the software is due...

                          Then it's out to the street,
                              In the marketing heat,
                       To generate this month's revenue...

                             No, I can't really say,
                            Which problems were fixed,
                      Or which parts you have to buy new...

                             But the A.E. will call,
                            And it all will be solved,
                      By new PROM's being FedEx'd to you...

                          We are glad that you called,
                              We were happy to help,
                   We're proud of response time, it's true...

                          That should fix all the bugs,
                           but it won't change the fact,
                     That your project is now long overdue!