Barbie the Debian Developer

Some people may have seen recently that the Barbie series has a rather sexist book out about Barbie the Computer Engineer. Fortunately, there’s a way to improve this by making your own version.

Thus, I made a short version about Barbie the Debian Developer and init system packager.

(For those who don’t know me, this is satirical. Any resemblance to people is purely coincidental.)

Edit: added text in alt tags. Also, hai reddit!

One day, Debian Developer Barbie decided to package and upload a new init system to Debian, called 'systemd'. I hope everyone else will find it useful, she thought.Oh no says Skipper! You'll never take my init system away from me! It's horrendous and Not The Unix Way! Oh dear said Barbie, What have I let myself in to?Skipper was most upset, and decided that this would not do. It's off to the technical committee with this. They'll surely see sense.Oh no! What's this? The internet decided that the Technical Committee needed to also know everyone's individual views! Bad Internet!There was much discussion and consideration. Opinions were reviewed, rows were had, and months passed. Eventually, a decision was agreed upon.Barbie was successful! The will of the Technical Committee was that systemd would be the default! But wait...Skipper still wasn't happy. We need to make sure this never affects me! I'm going to call for a General Resolution!And so, Ms Devotee was called in to look at the various options. She said that the arguments must stop, and we should all accept the result of the general resolution.The numbers turned and the vote was out. We should simply be most excellent to each other said Ms Devotee. I'm not going to tell you what you should or should not do.Over the next year, the project was able to heal itself and eventually Barbie and Skipper decided to make amends. Now let's work at making Debian better!

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18 Responses

  1. Miriam Ruiz says:

    Gosh, you’re great!!! :)

  2. sebt3 says:

    A good story out of 2 bad ones. Thanks ;)

  3. underscore says:

    This is effing brilliant

  4. Ken says:

    To the tune of ‘Barbie Girl’ (with apologies to Aqua)

    Hiya Barbie
    Hi Lennart!
    You wanna hack some code?
    Sure Lennart.
    Jump in.

    I’m a Barbie girl, in a Linux world
    Synaptic, it’s fantastic.
    You can toss SysV, replace it with SysD.
    Imagination, FLOSS is your creation.

    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding!

    I’m a Barbie girl, in a Linux world
    Synaptic, it’s fantastic.
    You can toss RC, replace it with SysD.
    Imagination, FLOSS is your creation.

    I’m a blonde Debian girl, in a fantasy world,
    Log me in, make it root, consoleD.
    You’re a dev, rock’n’roll, feel the glamour in Red(Hat),
    Commit here, grab code there, udevD.
    You can patch,
    you can shim,
    if you say “Use glibc”.

    (uu-ooh-oh)

    I’m a Barbie girl, in a Linux world
    Synaptic, it’s fantastic.
    You can toss SysV, replace it with SysD.
    Imagination, FLOSS is your creation.

    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)

    Make me hack, make me pack, do whatever you please,
    I can act like a lead, I can code service files.
    Come jump in, coding friend, let us do it again,
    Hit the town, tool around, let’s go coding.

    You can patch,
    you can shim,
    If you say “Use glibc”.
    You can patch,
    you can shim,
    If you say “No BSD”.

    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)

    I’m a Barbie girl, in a Linux world
    Synaptic, it’s fantastic.
    You can toss SysV, replace it with SysD.
    Imagination, FLOSS is your creation.

    I’m a Barbie girl, in a Linux world
    Synaptic, it’s fantastic.
    You can toss RC, replace it with SysD.
    Imagination, FLOSS is your creation.

    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (ah-ah-ah yeah)
    Come on Barbie, let’s go coding! (uu-ooh-oh)

    Oh, I’m having so much fun!
    Well Barbie, we’re just getting started.
    Oh, I love you Lennart.

  5. Fabian says:

    This is hilarious, thank you so much!

  6. Why didn’t we have Barbie the Computer Engineer a year ago?!?!

  7. Michael says:

    Hahaha Ken, made my day!

  8. satoshi says:

    systemd is awesome

  9. Stas Smith says:

    Liiiiiiiitle bit distracted from reality

  10. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour” ~ Joseph Stalin

    • Neil McGovern says:

      Um… firstly, it’s not “humour”, it’s “wit”. Secondly, it wasn’t Joseph Stalin, it was Oscar Wilde. Finally, the full quote is: “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence”

      • Noted, and known (and not offended).
        In case it’s unclear – I very much enjoyed and appreciated your Barbie explanation[*1]. Humour and intelligence are great tools for providing new perspectives. Often when satire challenges opinions based on emotional over-investment (bias) the joke, and the thinking behind it, is dismissed by the partial quoting of Mr Wilde – “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit“. Hence my satirical quote.

        It was tempting to demand a citation proving Joseph Stalin didn’t say that (which Joseph Stalin?). But I decided to exercise some self-control. :)

        [*1] and your decision to publish the very MikeeUSA-like “song”, the song not so much.

        Kind regards

  11. Ralph Bromley says:

    I may do one of these for fun, call it “Barbie Installs Linux”

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