Any suggestions on a retirement gift for a software developer of 39 years?

Question

Our department (mainly geographic technologies) has a software developer that is retiring after about 39 years with the company. Any ideas on a good gift idea? This wouldn't be from the company but rather directly from his coworkers. Please try to keep the ideas in a range less than $250. Thanks.

(Realize this isn't specifically a tech question but given we're all a tech group, it seems more appropriate to ask here for advice.)

I don't think a T-Shirt will go over too well in this case. Can't say that I've seen him dress down, even for casual dress days.

So far, ThinkGeek has some promise. Still waiting to see other responses for additional ideas.

Answer 1

Any T-shirt from ThinkGeek would be great! They also have tons of great gadgets like a binary watch or wall clock. WAY COOL!

Answer 2

how about a huge map of the internet. It can be printed cheaply once you find the right map. Gave one to a geek friend a couple years ago, about 8 feet long by 4 feet high. He loved it!!!

Answer 3

take below and make it into a shirt or picture frame, or .....
as a programmer its priceless

Programming Languages

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

C

You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++

You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and

shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical

assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are

bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and

saying, "That's me, over there."

FORTRAN

You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run

out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If

you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to

shoot yourself anyways because you have no

exception-handling capability.

Pascal

The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Ada

After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to

concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and

shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you

discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.

COBOL

Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place

ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return

HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be

re-tied.

LISP

You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with

which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the

gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which

holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage

which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the

appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself

in the appendage which holds...

FORTH

Foot in yourself shoot.

Prolog

You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot.

The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't

permit it to explain it to you.

BASIC

Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large

systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

Visual Basic

You'll really only _appear_ to have shot yourself in the

foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you

won't care.

HyperTalk

Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you.

Answer the result.

Motif

You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the

bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the

ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to

pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

APL

You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring

out how to do it in fewer characters.

SNOBOL

If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you

fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

Unix

% ls

foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o

% rm * .o

rm:.o no such file or directory

% ls

%

Concurrent Euclid

You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

370 JCL

You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page

document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot.

Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Paradox

Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can,

too.

Access

You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes

in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

Revelation

You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the

foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty

little bullet-thingies are for.

Assembler

You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you

must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your

foot.

Modula2

After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything

in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.