A software engineer met his end and found himself at the Pearly
Gates. The Gatekeeper greeted him and tallied the score. “Your
record is pretty good, Mr. Programmer. Your sins and your good
deeds just about balance out. Tell you what - you may have your
own choice of either Heaven or Hell.” The engineer, weary of design
tradeoffs and wary of uninformed decisions, asked for more details.

“Sure,” replied the Gatekeeper. Here is the elevator. You can ride
up and see Heaven and down to see Hell. Take your time and make your
choice. But choose wisely, there is no turning back!” So the
engineer rode the elevator up and took a look at Heaven. He saw the
angels playing on their harps and the beatific look on the faces of
the faithful, blissfully flitting back and forth among the clouds.
“Well, that looks about like what I expected,” he said to himself.
“Let’s go take a look at the alternative.” So he rode down the
elevator to the floor labelled “HELL” and looked around there. To
his delight he found sandy beaches, beautiful women, snow-capped
mountains in the background, and parties going on all over.

Returning to the Gates, he had no problem informing the Gatekeeper
of his decision. “Heaven looks fine, but pretty boring to me. Hell
is what I have always dreamed of! Let me in.” The Gatekeeper handed
him an entry pass and the engineer went back down the elevator to
take his place in Hell. But to his surprise, the sun had gone out,
the snow had melted and the parties were over. There was fire and
brimstone, snakepits swarming with vipers, fiends torturing sinners,
and devils tormenting babies. “Wait!” he cried as two monsters
hauled him off to the chambers of eternal agony.

“What happened to the beach parties, fun and sunshine I saw before?”
“Oh,” replied the Devil. “That was just the demo.”

……….. and the moral of the story is: with a good marketing
department, you can sell anything.