CALL FOR DISCUSSION: comp.lang.perl.poems

[Larry Wall]

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

[Doug Eastick]

Classic. Just classic.

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.

--
Doug Eastick -- eas...@me.utoronto.ca

[System News Administrator]

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: new...@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov Pioneer's USENET ADMINISTRATOR +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Tom Neff]

A witty Perl...
Is like a mel-o-dee... :-)

(no it wasnt me)

[Randal Schwartz]

In article <04...@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!

@A=split(/\n/,<<'-- ');$A[9-$b-($b>5)]=~s/\*/vec($_,8*length($`)+$b-1,1)=1/eg while++$b<9;print;

**** ******* **** ******
************ ***********
.........................
*** * * * * *
* ** * * * * *
* * *** * * * * *
* * ** * * ** *
** * * * * ****
--
/=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!"=/

[Lisa S Chabot]

I think it's a fine idea and we should have one, but it raises the question:
where should I post my C limericks? (Who wants them, you may well ask.)

Too bad it's just all a joke...

:-)

---------------------------------
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd
Reply not in how many fadoms deep
They lie indrench'd.

[Scott Merrilees]

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

[Tom Neff]

As a fun project, scan for all comp.lang.perl articles with the string "TX"
in the header... :-)

[Randal Schwartz]

In article <15...@bfmny0.UU.NET>, tneff@bfmny0 (Tom Neff) writes:
| As a fun project, scan for all comp.lang.perl articles with the string "TX"
| in the header... :-)

$ cd /usr/spool/news/comp/lang/perl &&
perl -ne 'close(ARGV)if/^$/;print"$ARGV: $_"if/TX/;' *

630: Organization: Convex Computer Corp, Richardson, TX
848: Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
887: Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
895: Organization: Jet Prepulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, TX
916: Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
918: Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
940: Organization: Convex Computer Corp, Richardson, TX
941: Organization: Convex Computer Corp, Richardson, TX
$

Hmm. Yes, a pattern here.

print$+while$"++,",rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ "=~/(.).{$"}$/