Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!snorkelwacker!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-dexxav!lwall
From: lw...@jpl-dexxav.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.poems,comp.lang.perl
Subject: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: comp.lang.perl.poems
Message-ID: <0401@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 1 Apr 90 00:00:00 GMT
Reply-To: lw...@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Prepulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, TX
Lines: 61
Posted: Sun Apr  1 01:00:00 1990

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

Larry Wall
lw...@jpl-dexxav.jpl.nasa.gov