The Four Quadrants Of Programming Reality

Ah, the four horsemen of software development reality. On one side, you've got non-engineers throwing random examples at you like confetti at a parade. Meanwhile, engineers are busy creating elegant abstract models with "general rules" that work beautifully... in theory.

Then comes implementation - that beautiful moment when your elegant solution crashes into the wall of "weird corner cases" and "unintended consequences." Don't forget the obligatory hack comment that somehow keeps the whole thing from imploding.

And finally, the solution that SHOULD have been implemented - simple, straightforward, and completely ignored in favor of whatever Frankenstein's monster we actually shipped. With a "red herring" thrown in just to make sure we wasted time chasing something irrelevant.

This isn't a meme. It's a documentary.