Business Gift Ideas

Our department (mainly geographic technologies) has a software developer that is retiring after about 39 years with the company. Any ideas on a good gift idea? This wouldn't be from the company but rather directly from his coworkers. Please try to keep the ideas in a range less than $250. Thanks.

(Realize this isn't specifically a tech question but given we're all a tech group, it seems more appropriate to ask here for advice.)
I don't think a T-Shirt will go over too well in this case. Can't say that I've seen him dress down, even for casual dress days.

So far, ThinkGeek has some promise. Still waiting to see other responses for additional ideas.

Any T-shirt from ThinkGeek would be great! They also have tons of great gadgets like a binary watch or wall clock. WAY COOL!

3 Responses to “Any suggestions on a retirement gift for a software developer of 39 years?”

1. Dougc Says:
   June 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

   take below and make it into a shirt or picture frame, or …..
   as a programmer its priceless

   Programming Languages

   The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

   TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

   C

   You shoot yourself in the foot.

   C++

   You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and

   shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical

   assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are

   bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and

   saying, "That's me, over there."

   FORTRAN

   You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run

   out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If

   you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to

   shoot yourself anyways because you have no

   exception-handling capability.

   Pascal

   The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

   Ada

   After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to

   concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and

   shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you

   discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.

   COBOL

   Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place

   ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return

   HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be

   re-tied.

   LISP

   You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with

   which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the

   gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which

   holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage

   which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the

   appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself

   in the appendage which holds…

   FORTH

   Foot in yourself shoot.

   Prolog

   You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot.

   The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't

   permit it to explain it to you.

   BASIC

   Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large

   systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

   Visual Basic

   You'll really only _appear_ to have shot yourself in the

   foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you

   won't care.

   HyperTalk

   Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you.

   Answer the result.

   Motif

   You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the

   bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the

   ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to

   pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

   APL

   You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring

   out how to do it in fewer characters.

   SNOBOL

   If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you

   fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

   Unix

   % ls

   foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o

   % rm * .o

   rm:.o no such file or directory

   % ls

   %

   Concurrent Euclid

   You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

   370 JCL

   You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page

   document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot.

   Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

   Paradox

   Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can,

   too.

   Access

   You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes

   in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

   Revelation

   You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the

   foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty

   little bullet-thingies are for.

   Assembler

   You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you

   must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your

   foot.

   Modula2

   After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything

   in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
   References :
   http://home.nc.rr.com/rellis/jokes/proglanguages.html

2. bo.echo Says:
   June 16th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   how about a huge map of the internet. It can be printed cheaply once you find the right map. Gave one to a geek friend a couple years ago, about 8 feet long by 4 feet high. He loved it!!!
   References :

3. Stoner369 Says:
   June 16th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

   Any T-shirt from ThinkGeek would be great! They also have tons of great gadgets like a binary watch or wall clock. WAY COOL!
   References :
   http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/

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