The Loser of the System

Sung to the tune of "The Coward of the County", by Kenny Rogers.
Lyrics by Ernest Adams.

Everyone considered him the loser of the system.
He never wrote a word of code that proved the system wrong.
His mama named him Tommy, but the TA's called him Lossage.
Somethin' always told me his code was much too long.

Tommy was a new user when JQ flushed his roommate
He was helping Tommy when he was taking 106.
I still recall the final words his roommate MAILed to Tommy
"Kid, I've just been clobbered; I guess you'll hit the sticks."

CHORUS:

    "Promise me, kid
    Not to do the things I did.
    Walk away from CERAS when you can.
    Now you don't have to cheat;
    It can wait another week,
    And roomie, I sure hope you understand:
    You don't have to hack to write programs."

There's one CUSP for everyone, and Tommy's CUSP was EMACS
In its fork he didn't have to hack to write his code.
One night while he was working the system went unstable.
The crashes munged his files (And there were three of them).

When Tommy did a D I R and saw his programs munched up
The lost work, the broken code was more than he could stand.
He reached into his wallet, ripped up his roommate's picture
As the shreds fell on the CERAS floor he heard these words again:

CHORUS

    "Promise me, kid
    Not to do the things I did.
    Walk away from CERAS when you can.
    Now you don't have to cheat;
    It can wait another week,
    And roomie, I sure hope you understand:
    You don't have to hack to write programs."

The TA folks just stared at him as he walked up towards their table.
One of them got up and went and hid inside the john.
When Tommy went in back they said, "Thank gosh, he's askin' JQ."
(But you should have seen their eyes bug when Tommy sat and logged a job in.)

Nine long weeks of losin' were bottled up inside him.
He wasn't holdin' nothing back, he DEBUGged all night long.
When Tommy left the lobby not a program was unfinished
He said, "Thank gosh for EMACS" as he walked into the dawn.

(And I heard him say)

CHORUS

    "I promised you, kid
    Not to do the things you did.
    I've walked away from CERAS when I could.
    But I didn't want to cheat;
    It couldn't wait another week,
    And roomie, I sure hope you understand:
    Sometimes you got to hack to write programs."

Everyone considered him the loser of the system...