The son of an old programmer, who had also studied computer science, hadn't been home in five years. When he finally returned, his father—a staunch C++ and Linux enthusiast—completely lost it.
"Where the hell have you been for five years, kid? Why didn’t you ever send us a pull request? Not even a single commit message? Do you have any idea how much your mother—a former COBOL programmer—has been worried about you?"
The boy started to cry and replied,
"Dad… I became a PHP developer."
"You what?" the father trembled with rage. "Get out of my house! You shameless… script kiddie! Our family has written compiled languages for three generations, and you go off and write this… this $variable nonsense? You’re a disgrace to the 'Elegant Code' family name!"
"Fine, Dad… whatever you say," the boy sobbed. "I just wanted to come back and give Mom this top-of-the-line M4 MacBook Pro, and my little brother this new Apple Vision Pro. And this limited-edition HHKB electrostatic capacitive keyboard is for you."
He paused, then continued,
"Oh, and that brand-new Tesla Model X Plaid outside is yours. I also paid off the mortgage, acquired the Jira instance you hate at your company, and open-sourced it. I was hoping to invite the whole family to spend the holidays in the San Francisco Bay Area…"
The father fell silent.
"...What was it you said you became?"
The boy cried again,
"A PHP programmer, Dad!"
"Oh, by Linus’s beard!" the father said, sighing with relief, walking over to hug his son. "You scared me to death, son! I thought you said you became a Project Manager! Come on in—tell your old man how you did it!"