March 30th, 2004

"Special skills" draft on the drawing board

The [U.S.] government is taking the first steps toward a targeted military draft of Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages.

Apparently, there is already a special system to draft “health care personnel”, whatever that means. Can you imagine the havoc that could be wrought by disgruntled programmers forced to write code for the government? So all I have to do now is volunteer at the local hospital and I’ll have hit the conscription jackpot.

[Raymond is currently on vacation; this message was pre-recorded.]

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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