Disclaimer

Had I been Mr. Liddell, even when considering the different artistic values of the 1850s, Charles Dodgson would not have lived to hear of the end of the crimean war. Maybe, if I contained myself, he could “just” spend the rest of his life sitting down for his No.1s.
All this aside, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is a very interesting read, which takes some stabs at the grown up world, while keeps a healthy dose of cuckoo bananas.

Never made the New York times best sellers list

It’s been more than 150 years (OK, 151, which is indeed more than 150) since Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published. During that time, the text and the original drawing achieved meme state, but also the derivatives (Disney movie, Jefferson Airplane song) originated multiple memes. Let’s see if we can map our high tech life to Alice quotes, as we already do to other canons as the bible, 9gag or Seinfeld.

A minor code change / trivial patch with no risk:

“The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”

Throwing buzzwords around:

“Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say”

When even monkey testing stops working:

“There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.”

When you complete a feature so fast the you spoil your product people:

“Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

This is just plain logic. If you are a project manager, you will probably skip it:

“It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.”

HR anybody?

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)”

Polymorphism:

“Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: ‘Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah,that’s the great puzzle!’ And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.”

Reflection:

“I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, ‘I must be Mabel after all……”
“I shall only look up and say “Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else”

BS detection:

“‘Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!’ And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.”

Tautology:

“She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!”

Chat bot meets Monty Python’s argument clinic:

The entire caterpillar bit. Go ahead, see for yourself.

When attention to details clouds the bigger picture:

“for a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood —(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)”

Flow control:

‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where —’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

Painting yourself into a corner by using unnecessarily small data types:

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

Project planning:

‘How are you getting on?’ said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with. Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. ‘It’s no use speaking to it,’ she thought, ‘till its ears have come, or at least one of them.’

When an enterprise client complains o an issue, directly to the CEO:

The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round.

Sales in a nutshell:

‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’

Lambda expressions in a nutshell:

‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess; ‘and the moral of that is —“Be what you would seem to be”— or if you’d like it put more simply —“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”’

Live Demo:

‘Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’