The EVIL Pranks!

[nuetron 64]

[roadrunner84 466]

Similarly you could replace a vital space with any empty character (the non-breaking space for example).

[Fred 453]

I quite like changing the keyword colour in Visual Studio to the background colour. Start typing and words then mysteriously vanish. Not too hard to work out what's going on, but still fun.

[dubnet 238]

This one is not programming related but is still in the spirit of the thread.  Screen capture the desktop, stash the desktop icons and then use the screen shot as the desktop wallpaper.  Let the fruitless clicking ensue. 

[greeeg 460]

If you have time. This website is a real gem

http://www.mindprod.com/jgloss/unmain.html

 

It describes A+ practices like this:

#ifndef DONE
#ifdef TWICE
// put stuff here to declare 3rd time around
void g(char* str);
#define DONE
#else // TWICE
#ifdef ONCE
// put stuff here to declare 2nd time around
void g(void* str);
#define TWICE
#else // ONCE
// put stuff here to declare 1st time around
void g(std::string str);
#define ONCE
#endif // ONCE
#endif // TWICE
#endif // DONE

The 1st source file you include this header in will be using a different g function :')

 

Or placing macros hidden within header files that replace seemingly straightforward statements

#define a=b a=0-b

[nuetron 64]

This one is not programming related but is still in the spirit of the thread.  Screen capture the desktop, stash the desktop icons and then use the screen shot as the desktop wallpaper.  Let the fruitless clicking ensue. 

 

I actually did that to a co-worker one time and got banned from doing that to him for a long time. He was in the middle of a critical project when he left his workstation unlocked while he was up talking to management, and when he got back I let him go as far as task manager before I stopped him from terminating Excel, with his unsaved docs.

 

I've been thinking about pranks for a long time, and these have been rattling around in my mind:

1. The Frozen Programs Prank With Hidden Taskbar (same as above, but with the apps open)

2. The AZERTY Prank (switch the keyboard layout to the azerty format)

3. The Busy Cursor Prank (change the cursor to the spinning circle)

4. The Upside-Down Screens Prank (Ctrl-Alt-Arrow, or whatever the videocard has for shortcuts to rotate the screen)

 

I have a slightly less tech-savvy co-worker who leaves his workstation unlocked. I'm going to combine all of these and hit him at one time.