
Black Perl - diego
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Perl
======
roberto
I wrote a (valid) Python poem a long time ago:

    
    
        import calendar as usual
        StandardError is usual \
        or not usual. month is long
        
        try: not coerce
        finally: quit
        
        (help for me in range
        (usual. MONDAY))

~~~
lelf
[https://metacpan.org/module/Acme::Python](https://metacpan.org/module/Acme::Python)

------
haberman
This C program not only reads as a series of letters, it also does something
(slightly) interesting:

[http://www.ioccc.org/1990/westley.c](http://www.ioccc.org/1990/westley.c)

(HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375945))

------
btilly
Perl has always had a playful nature. For a surprisingly long time, my top
rated post on Perlmonks was
[http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=29977](http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=29977).
Since it is short, here it is in full:

The job I want:

    
    
        $dollars++ while sleep(1);
    

The job I get:

    
    
        {
            work();
            redo;
            get_rich();
        }

~~~
tootie
Perligata ([https://metacpan.org/module/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana-
Perligata-...](https://metacpan.org/module/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana-
Perligata-0.50/lib/Lingua/Romana/Perligata.pm)) always blew my mind. Write
your programs in pure Latin.

~~~
berntb
Damien scares me a bit, despite that you could probably earn money making a
teddybear looking like him and sell to kids. :-)

When he talks, you get the feeling it are thoughts that should not be thought;
like going crazy from seeing Cthulhu.

~~~
btilly
He should scare you. He has one talk where he asks for volunteers from the
audience to try to punch him. The ways that he proceeds to immobilize them
relate to the various points he's making in his talk.

He's also the only person that I can think of who would seek to explain the
concept of elementary particles being made of quarks using Mars bars as
analogies. Right down to the fact that the sum of 3 of the masses of the small
Mars bars slightly exceeds the mass of the large one - that right there is the
binding energy!

For those who have not experienced him, Damian is hard to explain. For those
who have experienced him, the full mind-bending reality is hard to remember.
He's the only person about whom I say that if he's giving a presentation you
go, just because it is Damian. Even if you don't know the topic. Even if you
hate the topic. Even if you're bored by the topic. It is Damian. Go.

~~~
tootie
Perl is definitely for free thinkers.

~~~
Gormo
And, sometimes, expensive doers.

------
kbenson
Having had a chance to experience Larry up close at a YAPC, I firmly believe
he's one of the most quirkily brilliant people in the industry (for whatever
industry means in this case).

~~~
greyman
Is he still active? Haven't heard about him much in the mainstream tech media.

~~~
lsiebert
He came in June, or maybe late May, signed books, and talked/answered
questions at my Advanced Perl class. He's friends with our teacher.

Was a real treat. A real nice humble guy. I posted in r/perl at the time. He's
active in #perl6 on freenode, I believe.

It's a shame that he's had health issues.

------
gall
Here's a little something in Python that I spent the last few hours writing:

    
    
      def unfalse_poem():
          (None is True) and False
          for subject in [complex(True,False)]:
              subject is not object
              for certainty in [complex(False,True)]:
                  certainty is not Exception
                  certainty is not license
                  subject and certainty
                  reduce and coerce
                  coerce and reduce
                  while certainty.real: unexamined
          for certainty in [complex(False,True)]:
              return certainty is not certainty.real is not certainty

~~~
e12e
It has a certain ring of Vogon poetry to it...

------
nathell
How about a simple meta-sonnet game in Natural Inform?

From [http://forums.penny-
arcade.com/discussion/39142/inform-7-pro...](http://forums.penny-
arcade.com/discussion/39142/inform-7-programming-a-game-by-talking-to-it):

    
    
        Will's Study is a room. The desk is here.
        A hastily handwritten note is on it.
        Description is "It's from your friend Shakespeare:
        'I've gone to lunch. You'll have to write the sonnet.'"
        Composing is an action applying to nothing.
        The quill is a thing that is in the study.
        Understand "write sonnet" as composing.
        Description of the quill is "Old and cruddy".
        Instead of composing when the player
        has no quill, say "You have not got the quill."
        Instead of composing, say "And... done. 'Heya',
        says Will, returning. You say, 'Hello, Will!'
        Says Shakespeare, 'Thank you for the time you've taken!
        You really are a pal, Sir Francis Bacon.'"

~~~
JulianMorrison
You have to say "is not carrying the" rather than "has no", to get it to
compile.

------
hhenn
It never occurred to me how perfect programming languages are for poetry. You
have all these extra characters and whitespace to change how a piece of text
feels or reads, and it becomes a visual experience too, like looking at art.
Are there other program-poems people should look at?

The only thing I'd seen like this before was "Sunrise, Sunset" written in PHP.
I know these things aren't new for many of you but I keep being surprised by
the creativity I find.

------
biggfoot
So Larry Wall is a black metal artist in his spare time?

    
    
        kill them, dump qualms, shift moralities,
        values aside, each one;
        die sheep! die to reverse the system
        you accept (reject, respect);

~~~
berntb
As a hard core atheist, it is good for me to see really religious guys like
Larry Wall which are so laid back that they can make fun of their own
opinions.

For the record, I have met a few.

A little bit like when, as an Emacs user, I see a post on a really informative
blog about their Vi configuration. Or at a conference when the speaker
connects the computer -- "wtf, _he_ use Windows!?" :-)

(And as a metal fan I mostly avoid the lyrics, it might destroy the music if
they are too stupid. But I'm a wimp which listen mostly to technical death.)

~~~
epsylon
Completely offtopic, but there are some black(ish) metal bands with great
lyrics.

Being a nerd, I am for example very partial to Vintersorg's album Cosmic
Genesis (check out the song Algol ! [1]). (The singer, Andreas Hedlund, is
actually a primary school teacher)

See (and hear) also the Irish band Primordial, who have great songs about
Ireland. I've got goosebumps everytime I hear the chorus of "The Coffin Ships"
[2] or the ending poem of "Death of the Gods" [3].

I could go on forever, but I'll mention three more bands, Vulture Industries
for their very theatrical lyrics [4] and Solefald for the crazy and
philosophical stuff [5]. And finally, a personal favorite of mine, Behemoth's
"The Youth Manifesto" [6]. (Nergal, the lead singer and guitarist, is a
fantastic lyricist and an incredible person)

[1]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/vintersorg/cosmicgenesis.ht...](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/vintersorg/cosmicgenesis.html#2)

[2]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/primordial/thegatheringwild...](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/primordial/thegatheringwilderness.html#5)

[3]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/primordial/redemptionatthep...](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/primordial/redemptionatthepuritanshand.html#8)

[4]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/vultureindustries/thedystop...](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/vultureindustries/thedystopiajournals.html#3)

[5]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/solefald/neonism.html#3](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/solefald/neonism.html#3)

[6]
[http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/behemoth/thelema666.html#11](http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/behemoth/thelema666.html#11)

~~~
berntb
To, sigh, go even more off topic.

I like my metal a bit less melodic. :-)

Meshuggah, Nile, Dillinger Escape Plan, etc. Not the extreme stuff (when
Darkthrone's "Blaze in the northern sky" gave me a headache; then I knew I was
at my limit :-) ).

Disclaimer: I do like lots of whining singer-songwriters and folk music
(including Irish like Altan etc) too. Even Mary Gauthier!

------
shadeless
Reminded of haikus written in Ruby:
[http://timelessrepo.com/haiku](http://timelessrepo.com/haiku)

------
nvader
My favorite poem is Sharon Hopkins' Listen
[https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.lang.perl/V2R...](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.lang.perl/V2RqT1dS2Jg)

------
ricardobeat
Can anyone explain what happens to all the undefined vars to someone
unfamiliar with Perl?

~~~
tudorconstantin
Variables in perl are preceded by a sigil($,@,%,*). Those undefined words are
not variables, but, at least in perl5, when you don't use strict, perl tries
several fallbacks in order to find their value: see if it is a function
(called without paranthesys), see if it is a constant, use it as a string
otherwise.

------
HillRat
The Perl Poetry contest used to be a thing -- I don't think anyone ever
measured up to "Black Perl" in awful audacity, but the parser can take a hell
of a lot of abuse before it cries uncle.

------
motoboi
Not literally a poem, a beautiful code written in Perl:
[http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=45213](http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=45213)
(Camel Code)

~~~
tlrobinson
It seems like it would be trivial to arrange nearly any non-whitespace-
significant language into arbitrary ASCII art.

~~~
salvadors
The output of this code is also relevant — not just its source.

------
bmmayer1
I want to run it, but do I have anything to fear? "Black Perl" suggests it's
going to do some bad stuff to my box.

~~~
shubb
Haha, I don't think this script does much on a machine. It is designed to be
interpreted by humans though.

~~~
area51org
I remember this -- I _swear_ this was in one of the Perl books (the Camel
book?) way back when.

It's valid Perl 3, but it is not supposed to _do_ anything useful. The idea is
simply to show how expressive you could be in the language.

~~~
andreasvc
I don't understand what you mean by 'expressive' in this sentence: if it's not
to make the program do something specific, you could just wrap everything in a
comment block and be as 'expressive' as you like in any language.

~~~
mst
I elaborated on actual expressiveness here:

[http://shadow.cat/blog/matt-s-trout/pizza-snakes-
bicycle/](http://shadow.cat/blog/matt-s-trout/pizza-snakes-bicycle/)

(which post starts by quoting the Black Perl to put you in the mood :)

------
dandare
If "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
[Arthur C. Clarke] then incantation is really just programming through voice
interface done smart.

------
jonah
That's pretty dark. :(

------
winkerVSbecks
Am I the only one who thought this was about Pelé?

------
jacquesm
Now I have Margriet Eshuijs in my head.

