Niall caught this quote: “Larry is a believer in the code is poetry model, especially for coding a language such as Perl.”
Niall caught this quote: “Larry is a believer in the code is poetry model, especially for coding a language such as Perl.”
I was paraphrasing Larry’s own words regarding how open source projects decide what is included in the core. Larry mentioned CPAN as everything to everyone, the encyclopedia model, and the Perl code base as poetry, carefully selected and optimized so each part flows well into the next and adds specific meaning to the entire piece.
It’s true that Perl is real code poetry, much more than PHP. Ok, sometimes it’s poetry through obfuscation, but still .. 🙂
Perl rocks! 🙂
Well, personally I love perl, but it’s not hard to find people who think that perl code is more like line noise than poetry…
Ok, I am not a programmer. I am still getting the hang of php. But poetry! I am a writer, I don’t see the connection. I can see writing a poem like HTML programming code or any code for that matter. But the cut in lines, imagery, or the narrative—programming as poetry (no, not at all)? It’s a list of commands, not a story. I can see styling of themes as a story but remember themes, a lot them are based on what has all ready existed. You can’t say that about all poems. Some not all. Mutation and newness.
Michael, it’s more about a likeness in the way coders strive for a form of aesthetics, just like any other craftsman or artist does (it’s not limited to poetry of course, but that’s a pretty evocative way to put it). In a poem, every word is carefully chosen, syllables counted, rythm and ryhme established.. in programming you attempt to balance the fastest algorithms, the most readable instructions, the most elegant models..
Think of it more like “Code should be beautiful” rather than “Code is similar to soandso literary genre.”
Firas, that’s a fantastic explanation.