Stuck in an Infinite Loop,
by Prof. J. D. Dougherty (Haverford College Computer Science), spring 2004
Tune: "Stuck in the Middle with You", by Joe Egan & Gerry Rafferty.

Recording: mp3
(Guitar and vocals: J. D. Dougherty, Recording engineer: Walter Smith)

OK, this may not really be a physics song, but most of us have to program computers, and have run into this problem. (Plus, it's just a great song!)

1. Well, I don't know how I got in this state.
Hey, it seems that I'm a victim of fate,
The loop that I wrote just doesn't work,
Now I'm feeling like an infinite jerk.

Dave to the left of me -- J.D. to the right,
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.

2. And I don't know what it is I should do,
The debugger tells me I'm really screwed.

Dave to the left of me -- J.D. to the right,
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.

3. (bridge) Well I started with a precondition
And really thought I had a plan.
The monitor comes over,
"Force-quits" the machine and says,
"SIGABORT -- segmentation fault."

4. Tried to make some sense of my code,
But it seems I let the logic explode.
I thought I could just experiment,
Next time I'll use an invariant.

Dave to the left of me -- J.D. to the right,
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.

5. (bridge) Well I started with a postcondition
And really thought I had a plan.
The monitor comes over,
Unplugs the machine and says,
"Now it halts -- not my fault.

6. Well, I don't know how I got here tonite.
The progress condition just wasn't right,
My poor brain is under way too much stress,
Perhaps recursion would have been best.

Dave to the left of me -- J.D. to the right,
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop.
Here I am, stuck in an infinite loop ....................

Word version of lyrics


Image courtesy of Infinite Loop Software

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