It’s that time of year. Most of us are tired and looking forward to a break. For the developers who still have deadlines, here is a Christmas poem for you. It is courtesy of Co-pilot, with only a little tweaking. (The image is courtesy of Dall-E.)
The Bytes Before Christmas
In a cozy office, on Christmas Eve night,
The programmers worked by the monitors’ light.
Their screens were all glowing with codes of green,
Typing away in a caffeine-induced dream.
Their IDEs open, with tabs left and right,
With hopes to debug their code by midnight.
When all of a sudden, a noise filled the air,
A clattering sound that caused quite a scare.
From the server room came a beeping so loud,
The programmers gathered, a curious crowd.
And what did they see on the screen’s glowing lights?
A miniature sleigh displayed all in bytes!
With a jolly old hacker, so lively and quick,
They knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
He coded and clicked, his fingers a blur,
As he whistled and shouted commands to the server.
"Now, Compile! Now, Execute! Now, Deploy and Test!
On, Syntax! On, Debugger! On, Optimize and Best!
To the top of the repo! To the top of the stack!
Now code away! Code away! Fix that syntax!"
As lines of code scrolled with nary a break,
The programmers watched, just barely awake.
St. Nick in his hoodie, with code all aglow,
Solved every last bug, fixed every last flow.
And then, with a flourish, he turned to the team,
Wishing them happy holidays in code’s bright gleam.
"May your code always run, may your servers stay bright,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
With a twinkle in his eye, he vanished away,
Leaving behind code that worked and would stay.
The programmers cheered, their spirits uplifted,
For Santa had come, and their code was gifted.
And so, in the warmth of that Christmas night,
The monitors hummed with a soft, gentle light.
For St. Nick had done what no bug could defy,
And given the programmers a new coding high.
Thank you for …
2023 has had plenty of challenges. But there are always things to be grateful for. And this is my turn to be grateful:
- Thank you to those clients who treat us like partners. We love being part of your training journey.
- Thank you to the "golden oldies". You are the developers and managers whose history with us goes back decades. Even if you only send a few people a year, you are very special to us.
- Thank you to our new clients, who took the risk of trying a new training provider. We hope that you will become golden oldies too.
- Thank you even if you didn’t book any training this year. We are grateful for the chance to build a relationship with you.
- Thank you for reading my emails. And an extra thank you for every time you reply. It may seem like a small thing to you, but it makes my day.
Our official (South African) festive greeting
We wish you a wonderful holiday season, and a fabulous 2025.
May you have water, electricity and – unless you are taking a tech break – a stable internet connection.
Our offices will close from 13 December 2023 to 13 January 2024. I’ll still check email daily. So please contact me if you need any information or dates – although my response may be delayed. And, as always, you can find the course schedule and course outlines are on the website.