I'm bored. When that happens my mind comes up with all kinds of weird crap to keep itself occupied. So I figured I might as well subject you to the latest one. Think of this as a mental exercise. The scenario goes likes this:

A bad programmer dies and goes to hell. Now when I say bad I mean the kind who doesn't write comments, couldn't care less about conventions of any sort and is always writting "smart" code.  You know the type. You (the devil) have to come up with an eternal torment. Now the ole lake of fire song and dance just isn't gonna cut it. It's been done too much in the past. You need to come up with a creative, original and fitting punishment. What do you do?

Here's a couple of solutions I came up with.

The guy has to write a brand new OS, only the compiler has a slight quirk. When it finds an error it deletes all the source code. Add to this a keyboard whose keys are blank and are rearranged every day. For extra bonus make sure that all non-alphabetic characters need a four letter combination each.

Or... he has to debug a huge program where everything is included from different files. And those files get everything from other included files. And so on and so forth all the way down to files containing individual commands. Of course the PC doesn't have a lot of HDD space so every file is stored on a punchcard... and the machine can only read one at a a time. For extra bonus add a giant fan under the floor so there's a constant cloud of punchcards flying around.

 

 

 

Meh, just make em run Windows ME (chosen because of its outstanding quality compared to MS' other products) on hardware prone to overheating and various other causes of bluescreens while trying to program something to point out his every flaw (in all aspects of his life), while an over-zealous virus scanner decides that all text displayed by the GUI must be scanned lest the failure^M programmer decide to try and complement emself.

Edit: to goal being to make Hell get progressively worse as eternity drags on

 Just find two such programmers, and get them to maintain each other's app. No help from anyone allowed.

Lingerance:

Meh, just make em run Windows ME (chosen because of its outstanding quality compared to MS' other products) on hardware prone to overheating and various other causes of bluescreens while trying to program something to point out his every flaw (in all aspects of his life), while an over-zealous virus scanner decides that all text displayed by the GUI must be scanned lest the failure^M programmer decide to try and complement emself.

I see your ME and raise you old-school linux. Have him compile dependencies going all the way down to basic I/O. The man pages contain yellow, size 5 text on white background and for extra fun you switch random parts of the hardware every few days so he has to set up drivers for them.

HypocriteWorld:

 Just find two such programmers, and get them to maintain each other's app. No help from anyone allowed.

 

And only allow them to use Perl.

tster:

HypocriteWorld:

 Just find two such programmers, and get them to maintain each other's app. No help from anyone allowed.

 

And only allow them to use Perl MUMPS.

Now that's hell!

Alternatively, debug code from Windows/Office/whatever makes up tons of code ... in assembly. Directly in runtime, while the OS/program is running.

 Get a giant Wheel of Fortune type wheel. Put project requirements on it, most of which should be mutually exclusive. Then every week turn the wheel and assign a new requirement. For extra bonus turn this into a game show.

"Welcome demons and damned to the Wheel of Torture! Put your hands/claws together for your host, the infamous, the one and only.. Satan! " 

*applause*

Satan: "Good eternity everyone. Should we roll the wheel?" 

Audience: "YEAH!!!"

Satan: "Go ahead Adolf"

Tactactactactactactactactactactactactactactactac tac tac tac tac   tac      tac

Satan: "And today's requirement is.... An Access backend must be used!" 

*applause*

Satan: "Tune in same time next week for Wheel of Torture!" 

*theme music* 

 

 I see no reason that everything suggested in this thread thus far cannot all be done at once.