The Terminal Retrospectives:

As most of the Temple is away for the mid-winter holidays, there has been little news to report. But since some of you have expressed interest in the doings of our peers in the exotic Far West, I recruited the nun Yíwen to prepare an edifying monograph on that subject.

I asked her to describe the conditions under which a developer in those strange lands might be judged as unsatisfactory. Sadly, I see that—yet again—she has answered my earnest request with amphigory. My most solemn apologies.—Qi.

A is for Agnes whose App must be killed
B is for Boris who’s Broken the build
C is for Caitlin who Comments out code
D is for Derrick whose Data won’t load

E is for Egbert who swallows Exceptions
F is for Fay who won’t Follow directions
G is for Garth who can’t Grasp the essentials
H is for Hal who Hardcoded credentials

I is for Ives who Indenting disables
J is for Jacob who Joins twenty tables
K is for Kathryn whose Kludge was all wrong
L is for Leda whose Lines are too long

M is for Max using Memory excessive
N is for Nan choosing Names inexpressive
O is for Otto, Objecting to rules
P is for Petra who didn’t use Pools

Q is for Quincy whose Queries look grim
R is for Rex who Refactors at whim
S is for Sidney, stores numbers in Strings
T is for Tilton, to Triggers he clings

U is for Ulmer who hates Unit testing
V is for Vin and his Very deep nesting
W is for Wade who logs Warnings most dire
X is for Xander whose cache won’t eXpire

Y is for Yancy who Yells when he’s chided, and
Z is for Zeb who by Zero divided.

Editor’s note

The text was inspired by Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies (or, After the Outing).

I’m very pleased to be working with Scamperingkaos on a fully-illustrated version of this poem.