Tal Cohen's Bookshelf: A Collection of Personal Opinions about Books

Cuff writes:
Book-in Jokes
I have a 1994 printing of the Learning Pearl. The reference to the Ben Franklin quotes are in an example program that generates fortunes. The quotes serve as the fortunes. I'm not sure how that is a joke. They just needed some material for the program and borrowed from Ben (without crediting him).

I think the reference to the Scooby-Doo ''rindex()'' function is misrepresented as a joke. ''rindex'' is short for ''right index'' if you read the example.
[59] Posted on Thursday, 02 November 2006 at 18:51 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink]


Tal Cohen writes in reply to Cuff:
Book-in Jokes
The joke is not about the rindex() function, which is clearly not a misspelling or anything; it is about Scooby-Doo's pronunciation. As for Franklin, the joke is in the index entry. Not all jokes are equally funny, I suppose, and it only gets worse if you try to explain them, and yet: nobody will search a book about Perl for info about Franklin. Which is why such ''useless'', tongue-in-cheek index entries are considered in-jokes.
[60] Posted on Friday, 03 November 2006 at 11:53 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink]

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