80+ Funny Programming Memes to Make You Laugh in 2024

To non-programmers, programmers are akin to witches and warlocks. They inscribe indecipherable runes — or code, as they lovingly refer to it — into their computers and in doing so instruct the inanimate (but likely magic) rocks within those computers on how to think. 

The thinking rocks are then able to do all the things that make life in the 21st century what it is — from maintaining our system of currency to enabling us to make and share memes.

Silly and reductive as this man teaches rock to think explanation is, it’s not entirely untrue, which makes it all the funnier. And if that doesn’t make for fertile meme-making ground, nothing does.

So, kick back, grab a coffee, and join us in this exploration of the programming condition through memes. 

intro

Memes to help you understand developers

It goes without saying that the vast majority of non-programmers don’t understand how programmers can teach rocks to think. 

But, the thing is, sometimes programmers themselves aren’t sure how they did it either.

From god complexes to impostor syndromes, programmers experience a wide range of emotions through most days of coding. These memes will help you better understand them.

(And, if you’re a developer seeing this, enjoy laughing at your own pain — it sounds cruel, but we all know that’s why you clicked on this page.)

It was me
dont break my code
Meetings suck
Range of emotions
I would fite for you
Sayonara
Programmer baby
See what sticks
The bell curve
Chat GPT programming language
Weekend saved
HR salary
Your old code
not sure if bug or stupid
5 lines of code
Railway
Can't read my own handwriting
Code and documentation
Code comments
Code doesn't work
Code like Drake
Didn't hit compile
Error
HR is the enemy
I wish I were at home playing video games
If it ain't broke
It was beautiful
It was me all along

💡 Plaky Pro Tip

If you’re having trouble understanding some of these memes, perhaps it would help to get a general understanding of how software development works. This guide will help you do exactly that by walking you through the stages of a software development plan:

Memes that depict code and its mysterious ways

As you might expect of thinking rocks, we don’t always understand how or why they work. Code has a degree of autonomy about it that can both delight and frustrate.

Worse performance
A surprise to be sure
Streamlining functioning feature
Annotations in code
Hysteria induced laughter
Consequences
I love democracy
It is a strange fate
Legacy code
Machine learning is insane
frontend and backend
Negotiating with a machine
Penguin code
Semi colon
Unmasking AI

QA vs devs memes

For many developers, their code is their labor of love. Unfortunately, that code will be used by others — in most cases, by paying customers — so someone needs to make sure that the code will work no matter how violently the users smack it around.

This is the job of quality assurance testers, who sometimes have strenuous relationships with developers because of this.

Defensive about code
Test feature
QA job is never done
Doing my part
Critical bug
Deploying features
Found another bug
Dev vs tester, royal rumble
Me and my code
QA mantra
QA tester at peace

💡 Plaky Pro Tip

If some of these QA vs prod memes hit too close to home, your bug reporting processes need some work. Try some of our bug reporting templates to make your life easier:

How programmers feel about users (and other non-programmers)

The brains of people who can teach rocks to think are wired differently from ordinary brains.

Consequently, features that developers feel are intuitive and simple to use and understand can end up feeling overwhelming and impossible for users who aren’t tech-savvy. 

This can lead to developers imagining users in some hilarious ways as depicted in the following memes.

Easy user interface
Works on my machine
Follow or comprehend
Every time
Simple and intuitive
Intuitive features
Managers
Sales impossible
Web developers
Why devs hate users

Programming languages be like

Code can be written in many different programming languages, each with its own eccentricities. Here are some ways in which particular programming languages drive developers insane.

Java be like
Violence
Better than me
Understanding code
Bernie is Java
Binary 10
Python is slow
British devs
c++ nonsense
HTML is not a real language
Javascript
Javs(script) recruitment
No-semicolon

Where developers get help from

Now we’re not saying that all developers steal code, but the very concept of stealing is seen a bit differently by the programming community than by most others. 

Developers have grown several platforms to share and instruct their kin and code is easy to copy-paste from these platforms, like Stack Overflow and GitHub.

In some cases, this is perfectly fine. In others, not so much, but it still happens on occasion.

In either case, this added context should help those who aren’t in the know understand (and hopefully appreciate) the following memes.

The archives
You are a pirate
Follower of github
Help me, GitHub
Just like the simulations

To procrastinate less and get more done, try Plaky

We hope you enjoyed procrastinating, but you should probably get back to work now.

If the reason you were procrastinating in the first place is poor organization, then might we suggest using Plaky to organize your programming tasks?

Plaky is a project management tool that works wonders for software development. You can see why Plaky is a great alternative to Jira by following this link — the short of it is that Plaky costs almost half as much while offering some features that Jira doesn’t support. It even has a free version that far eclipses its competition and allows for unlimited users, projects, and tasks.

With Plaky, if you still end up procrastinating, at least it won’t be because management has made it impossible for you to do your job.

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VladimirSamolovac
Vladimir  Samolovac

Vladimir Samolovac is a project management author and researcher who enjoys distilling various PM topics to their essence and presenting them in a streamlined manner. As an experienced teacher and project management aficionado, he aims to create a library of useful resources that will improve his readers’ project success rates.

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