(a
bad joke gleaned from
usenet. be forewarned)
A tourist walks into a pet shop in Silicon Valley, and is browsing the cages on display.
While there, a customer walks in and says to the shopkeeper, "I'll have a C monkey, please".
The shopkeeper nods, goes over to a cage and takes out a monkey. He fits a collar and leash and hands it to the customer, saying "That'll be $5,000".
The
customer pays and walks out with his monkey.
Startled, the tourist says to the shopkeeper. "That was a very expensive monkey--most of them are only a few hundred dollars. Why did that one cost so much?"
"Ah, that monkey can program in C -- very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money."
The tourist looks at the monkeys in that cage. "That one's even more expensive $10,000! What does it do?"
"Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java, all the really useful stuff."
The tourist sees a third monkey in a cage on its own. The price tag round its neck says $50,000.
Startled he says to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others combined!
What on earth does it do?"
"Well, I don't know if it does anything, it's a Consultant."