The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This guide is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such dilemmas.
C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++
You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying "That's me, over there."
FORTRAN
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling facility.
Pascal
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
Ada
After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.
Prolog
You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.
BASIC
Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
Visual Basic
You'll really only
appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.
Paradox
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.
Access
You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Assembly Language
You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.
Modula-2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.