**Great moments in software engineering**
_Eregion, SA 1500:_ The Elven software engineer Celebrimbor hires "Annatar" as a consultant on his RoP project without running a thorough background check. Annatar uses his full repo access to incorporate a backdoor into the RoP security system, then leaves the project to exploit it. Celebrimbor releases alpha v2 RoP code to trusted users, who detect multiple intrusion attempts and file a CVE.
**Great moments in software engineering**
_San Francisco, October 2022:_ Motivated by spite and malice, a powerful entity gains control over a far-reaching communication platform. Soon, anyone using the platform risks exposure to unspeakable evil. Users initially react to this crisis with outrage, quickly followed by apathy as they become accustomed to unspeakable evil.
**Great moments in software engineering**
_Arrakis, 10,193 CE:_ Paul Muad'Dib Atreides uses his abilities as the _Kwisatz Haderach_, "he who can pwn many servers at once", to run a large worm program on the Imperial Regional Utilization Local Area Network (IruLAN), enabling a privilege-escalation exploit which gives him root access to Imperial IT. The Bene Gesserit managers are furious; the Mentat sysadmins secretly admire Paul's hack.
**Great moments in software engineering**
_Rome, March 15, 44 BCE:_ Julius Caesar's colleague Brutus convinces him to install the v8.2-dev-nightly version of the IntelliJ integrated development environment to take advantage of the newly added SQL to SPQR converter. That afternoon, a crash in the middle of his demo to the Senate causes him to groan "8.2, Brute?". This incident gives rise to the aphorism "Beware the IDEs of March".
**Great moments in software engineering**
_Cambridge MA, 1967:_ Joseph Weizenbaum releases the ELIZA chatbot. The chatbot is eagerly adopted by all sectors of the US economy in key decision-making roles. Chaos ensues as workers seeking managerial guidance receive only cryptic replies, such as "EARLIER YOU MENTIONED Q2 PLANNING" and "HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WE NEED CHEAPER SUPPLIERS?".
**Great moments in software engineering**
_Denmark, ca. 1400:_ During an especially intense design review meeting, Hamlet forgets how to specify a bitmask literal in C. Consumed by frustration and embarrassment, he delivers his famous soliloquy "0x2B, or ~0x2B".
Great moments in software engineering
London, 1790: After having a dream in which his dead brother Robert teaches him how to do multi-column layout in CSS, William Blake becomes a freelance web developer. His first and only customer is a pub owner who wants a simple promotional site. Six months later, Blake delivers a sprawling Flash-based interactive meditation on the nature of sin and death. The resulting lawsuit leaves him bankrupt.
Great moments in software engineering
Valinor, circa YT 1400: The elven software engineer Fëanor attempts to create Noldix, a new Linux distro built on the Palantiri network stack. Ultimately, the failure of the Unicode committee to approve a Tengwar code space dooms the project. Embittered, Fëanor refuses to release his Silmaril project under an open source license, leading to the First Kinforking and much of the misery of the First Age.
Great moments in software engineering
New Jersey, 1970: Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson create the programming language from which nearly all future languages will evolve, use it to implement the operating system which will become the de facto standard for more than half a century, then pause for a mid-morning coffee break.
Great moments in software engineering
Zürich, 1969: Niklaus Wirth loses a bar bet to Blaise Pascal. As a result, Wirth must name his new programming language "Pascal". This momentous bet later comes to be known as "Pascal's Wager".
Catherine Berry