Technical Sarcasm

I just read an interesting article in ACM Queue magazine (ACM is the professional organization for CS people) railing against "silver bullets" in software development, tools or practices that are supposed to solve all difficulties and magically make projects successful. Unfortunately, there is no easy way out and the author expresses his frustration that after years or experience, people don't seem to understand that.

But what amuses me is his vividly sarcastic writing style, coming up with ridiculously concrete examples like:

Still reeling from the powerful implications of what I had read, I began to wonder if placement of any content in the context of XML would somehow lead people to believe it to be of hallowed or divine origin, and having some implicit warranty of accuracy or correctness. I decided to test this premise and composed an e-mail to my 12-year-old daughter, hoping to sway her on an opinion she has been very unwilling to yield upon many times in the past:

<sanctified_declaration>
  <addressee> Alanah </addressee>
  <message>
    Hi Sweetie, I really am not the weirdest Dad of all
    the kids in your school.
    Love, Dad.
  </message>
</sanctified_declaration>

I was optimistic that if she were to read this declaration within the context of XML, our long-standing dispute would finally get some resolution. Unfortunately, things did not work out as I had hoped, and my ploy served only to reinforce her unyielding position.