73
votes

In the Markdown help page, the Code and Preformatted Text example is:

printf("goodbye world!");  /* his suicide note
                              was in C */

It also happens to be the first example of the page, and probably where a new visitor's eye will go first. I get and appreciate the joke, however I'd prefer a bit more tasteful example, even if it's as boring and predictable as "hello world!".

Actually, screw that - boring and predictable is for pages you don't want folks to read. Let's have a bit of a contest.

Rules:

  1. Best example by total score wins.
  2. One example per answer, one answer per person.
  3. Two lines per answer, ideally demonstrating whitespace preservation.
  4. Must be recognizable as code.
  5. Must be as inoffensive as possible. Examples likely to encourage readers to commit to source control and then off themselves will be disqualified. Yes, this implicitly disallows any mention of Visual Source Safe.
  6. Winner will be awarded a heaping helping of worthless Meta rep, the envy of his peers, and temporary immortality.

Thanks everyone - look forward to a revised help page shortly. –Shog9

19
  • 3
    That's a bit flat.
    – random
    Aug 3, 2012 at 1:35
  • I don't get it. It's not April the 1st, and your asking a list of things question?
    – Benjol
    Aug 3, 2012 at 6:56
  • 4
    @Benjol Check the revision history, and blame Shog for everything ;)
    – yannis
    Aug 3, 2012 at 8:39
  • 6
    " ... and thanks for all the fish" ?
    – Remou
    Aug 3, 2012 at 14:23
  • 4
    I first read "temporary immorality". Your pun is better.
    – Gert Arnold
    Aug 3, 2012 at 18:20
  • 2
    Can number 3 be changed to "exactly two lines, demonstrating whitespace preservation"? That's an extremely important part of this formatting sample, and most of the examples below are one-liners.
    – jscs
    Aug 7, 2012 at 22:01
  • 3
    Ugh, I hate it when the rules of a contest change mid-way through, @Josh. So now's my chance for revenge. Changed!
    – Shog9
    Aug 10, 2012 at 21:59
  • 1
    I'm quite sure we can get something nice from here.
    – Matteo Italia
    Aug 10, 2012 at 22:55
  • Should we not fix the example under Code Spans as well "Press the `<Tab>` key, then type a `$`." since we should encourage using the <kbd>tab</kdb> markdown?
    – Joe
    Aug 11, 2012 at 0:13
  • 2
    Jeez guys, he's upset because he never learned to use puts() properly and was forever plagued by having to put \n at the end of every line. Have a heart.
    – bobobobo
    Aug 11, 2012 at 0:41
  • 3
    45 answers, and I got notified for each one... Frak!
    – yannis
    Aug 11, 2012 at 1:59
  • 2
    @DavidHyogo This is CW, votes neither earn or cost reputation (not to mention that Meta reputation is pointless).
    – yannis
    Aug 11, 2012 at 2:08
  • 1
    @DavidHyogo CW stands for Community Wiki. There are a couple of answers I feel are particularly tacky, and I don't feel there's anything wrong in down voting them, there is such a thing as a bad joke. Also worth noting that both the -7 and the -8 answers were posted by people who are very familiar with Stack Exchange, and (probably) couldn't care less about the down votes.
    – yannis
    Aug 11, 2012 at 2:44
  • 2
    Yannis, thank you for suggesting the change. I wish I could award a bounty to this question. (Perhaps those who know me personally will understand why this pleases me so.)
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Aug 11, 2012 at 3:38
  • 5
    @BoltClock'saUnicorn You're welcome. It kinda made me mad (for a few seconds) when this was turned into a fun poll. The suicide reference was pointed out to me by a friend I recently introduced to the network, and she gave me a very stern look when she first noticed (and hasn't contributed anything to the network yet, but that's probably because she knows all too well how the moderators are). It's tactless, and can be a hurtful reminder to some of us, the sooner we get rid of it the better.
    – yannis
    Aug 11, 2012 at 3:46

63 Answers 63

Reset to default
1 2
3
-8
votes
puts("Press any key to continue...");
while(Key == AnyKey)
{
    Misery++; //No escape from misery..
}
1
  • 3
    Worse tone than the suicide note.
    – user102937
    Aug 11, 2012 at 19:50
-8
votes

What about...

<html><body><a href="http://stackoverflow.com">Stack Overflow</a></body></html>

Going for more generic / less niche than C.

3
  • 3
    How is C niche?
    – user184036
    Aug 11, 2012 at 14:58
  • 1
    This is really boring. You also misspelled "Stack Overflow".
    – Ry-
    Aug 11, 2012 at 20:36
  • @Tibor, C isn't niche, but HTML is waaaaaay more generic than C, right? I know people how can even cout but can't printf, and HTML is known even to my 14 yo system-in-law.
    – Bruno Brant
    Aug 13, 2012 at 17:30
-9
votes

I'll go with this:

printf("MPAA can see this 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0");  /* However, the
     Compiler can't see this */
1 2
3

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