My entry in the 1998 FilKONtario song-writing contest. The theme was described in promotional materials variously as "A Place You'd Like To Go" and "A Place You'd Like To Go To", and I figured that a computer-geek "A Place You'd Like To GOTO" would be close enough.

(Copyright 1998 by Joel Polowin.)

(Spoken:)
In every software project
There are goals to keep in mind
Adding documented features
Taking out... the other kind

Chorus:

But there's 15 bugs, a random crash, and a typo in the way

And errors in the linker take their toll

I build the tools to fix the tools to fix the mess I'm in

And step by step I'm movin' round the goal

There's 15 bugs I know about, and prob'ly more I don't
I fix one with a simple little hack
But that just seems to spawn another two or three new bugs
The most efficient thing to do is put the first one back

There's something in the linker that isn't working right
It optimizes ev'ry function call
But ev'ry time my code completes a user subroutine
It jumps back to some other place that subroutine is called

The typo really ought to be a simple thing to fix
A couple keystrokes shouldn't cause much pain
But ev'ry time I try to check the stupid source file in
The version diff'rence system puts the typo back again

I've unlinked half the modules, I've IFDEFfed out the bugs
There's not much left, but what there is is clean
I've added seven GOTOs to the most important part:
The Easter egg that puts my name in lights up on the screen

(Chorus)
It's a random walk...
And step by step I'm movin' round the goal.

Copyright (C) 1998 by Joel Polowin. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this material in any non-profit medium provided that its content is not altered and that this notice is appended. I would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication in which it appears: Joel Polowin / 18 Norice St. / Nepean, Ont. / CANADA / K2G 2X5