Difference between revisions of "801: Golden Hammer"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Revision as of 20:02, 12 December 2012

Golden Hammer
Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.
Title text: Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.

Explanation

I believe the actual saying is: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."


Transcript

[A man with a black hat is going through a door, a bottle in his hand. A voice speaks to him from off panel.]
Person: Seriously? This thing runs Java? It's single-purpose hardware!
[The person is sitting at a computer, holding some device which is wired to a box, and pointing at the screen.]
Person: I bet they actually hired someone to spend six months porting this JVM so they could write their 20 lines of code in a familiar setting.
[The man with a black hat has a pair of bolt cutters in the hand that had been obscured in the first panel.]
Black hat guy: Well, you know what they say -- when all you have is a pair of bolt cutters and a bottle of vodka, everything looks like the lock on the door of Wolf Blitzer's boathouse.
Person: I'm glad you had a nice night.


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Discussion

What is the title referencing? 108.162.216.45 05:25, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that one of the original intents of Java, that is embedded systems? Presumably Java does run in several PLC type devices, but I have no first had account on this; Java certainly is not popular or common there. I checked the Wikipedia page and smart TV's were mentioned, this for 1991. 108.162.230.131 21:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Not all embedded systems are single-purpose hardware. Smart TVs use Java, so other developers can also easily create additional applications for them. Condor70 (talk) 12:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Does anybody know why Randall choose Wolf Blitzer for this comic? Does he have some relation to boats? Condor70 (talk) 12:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Presumably Randall knows, though it could be something as simple as "He's wealthy enough to have a boat and most people would know who he is". -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 06:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Nobody outside America has heard of Wolf Blitzer. Just sayin'. Brenda (talk) 00:39, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Golden hammer is also usual anti-pattern in software design. Means overkill. https://sourcemaking.com/antipatterns/golden-hammer

A good, brief explanation of golden hammer is found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument#Computer_programming
173.245.54.49 02:28, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I dont know who this Wolf Blitzer dude is so I will leave some links. Wikieditor431 (talk) 17:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)Wikieditor431