It has come to my attention that there is a crying need for a place for people to express both their emotional and technical natures simultaneously. Several people have sent me some items which don't fit into any newsgroup. Perhaps it's because I recently posted to both comp.lang.perl and to rec.arts.poems, but people seem to be writing poems in Perl, and they're asking me where they should post them. Here is a sampling:
From a graduate student (in finals week), the following haiku:
study, write, study, do review (each word) if time. close book. sleep? what's that?
And someone writing from Fort Lauderdale writes:
sleep, close together, sort of sin each spring & wait; 50% die
A person who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following example of "Black Perl". (The Pearl poet would have been shocked, no doubt.)
BEFOREHAND: close door, each window & exit; wait until time. open spellbook, study, read (scan, select, tell us); write it, print the hex while each watches, reverse its length, write again; kill spiders, pop them, chop, split, kill them. unlink arms, shift, wait & listen (listening, wait), sort the flock (then, warn the "goats" & kill the "sheep"); kill them, dump qualms, shift moralities, values aside, each one; die sheep! die to reverse the system you accept (reject, respect); next step, kill the next sacrifice, each sacrifice, wait, redo ritual until "all the spirits are pleased"; do it ("as they say"). do it (*everyone***must***participate***in***forbidden**s*e*x*). return last victim; package body; exit crypt (time, times & "half a time") & close it, select (quickly) & warn your next victim; AFTERWORDS: tell nobody. wait, wait until time; wait until next year, next decade; sleep, sleep, die yourself, die at last
I tried that, and it actually parses in Perl. It doesn't appear to do anything useful, however. I think I'm glad, actually...
I hereby propose the creation of comp.lang.perl.poems as a place for such items, so we don't clutter the perl or poems newsgroups with things that may be of interest to neither. Or, alternately, we should instead create rec.arts.poems.perl for items such as those above which merely parse, and don't do anything useful. (There is precedent in rec.arts.poems, after all.) Then also create comp.lang.perl.poems for poems that actually do something, such as this haiku of my own making:
print STDOUT q Just another Perl hacker, unless $spring
Unless Larry actually did it, it's almost impossible to tell where it came from. But that shouldn't suprise anyone, since if they can write poetry in perl, they can most certainly fake news.
The original article was posted on 1 April 1990 at 00:00:00.
Does this ring any (alarm) bells? :-)
Charles Guest +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ + *READ* ---> The opinions expressed above are to the best of my knowledge, + + However all options should be discussed with persons who have professional + + training with the subjects covered here. * ALL POSSIBLE DISCLAIMERS APPLY! + + ===>FROM: news...@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov Pioneer's USENET ADMINISTRATOR + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++
In article <0...@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, lwall@jpl-dexxav (Larry Wall) writes:
| print STDOUT q | Just another Perl hacker, | unless $spring
Nahhh. Larry never uses *this* as a closing handle. (Larry has used "Not just another Perl hacker" if anything.) Methinks it was a well-done (bravo!) hoaxy-post.
And now for something completely different... a paper-tape reader!
mer...@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes: >... Methinks it was a >well-done (bravo!) hoaxy-post.
I liked the transpose of x & v in jpl-devvax, making both the path & from headers read "jpl-dexxav", but the message-id has "jpl-devvax", I would guess that this would mean that Larry would get to see it as well, since jpl-devvax would not have previously been in the path header. Another couple of interesting headers were date, "Apr 1 00:00:00", and organization, which had "Prepulsion" instead of "Propulsion".
In summary, my congratulations to who ever `keyboarded' this diversion, it was well done, & fun.
Sm -- Scott Merrilees, BHP Rod & Bar Products Division, Newcastle, Australia INTERNET: S...@bhpese.oz.au UUCP: ...!uunet!bhpese.oz.au!Sm
print$+while$"++,",rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ "=~/(.).{$"}$/ -- /=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | mer...@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/
