| SOURCECODEPOETRY Eight lines of rhyming & executable sourcecode Peter Knobloch, 7. Oct. 2003
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(requires Flash 6) |
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| /* This is the story of Tom, Max and Sue little */ Tom = 3; /* and */ Max = 2; |
This is the story of Tom, Max and Sue, little Tom is three and Max equals two. |
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| onEnterFrame = function() { _y = Max +_y _x += Tom /* soon he will be Pi */ |
On enterframe is function. Y's Max plus y X plus is Tom (Soon he will be Pi). |
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| if ((_height > _y) || !(_y < Stage.height)) { /* then */ Max *= (7.0 - 8); } |
If height greater y or not y less Stageheight then Max times is seven point zero minus eight. |
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| Sue = !(_x < Stage.width) || (_width > _x); Tom *= 1 - Sue * Math.abs(Max); }; |
Sue's not x less Stagewidth or width greater x Tom times is one minus Sue Math-abs Max. |
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sourcecodepoetry.fla (Macromedia Flash Document, 37 kB) |
Description:
Sourcecodepoetry resides at the potential intersection of the lines of sourcecode and poetry.
Probably the similarity of both exceeds just having the written word in common:
the history of using a programming language to write poetry dates back to the 1970s.
Some of these poems consist of actually executable lines of code, some don't.
I was tempted from the beginning by the idea to write executable code that rhymes and
since I could not find any existing example this might be the first.
Sourcecodepoetry shows a colored disc moving inside the boundaries of an invisible rectangle.
The computer or a programmer reads that eight lines of code as instructions to animate the disc
but anyone else might start to read a little story about Tom, Max and Sue.
Sourcecode can not only be functional but beautiful. Since the understanding of non-programmers rarely goes beyond the analogy that sourcecode relates to an application like a score relates to music, the audience for this kind of beauty is very small. Last October I was invited to speak about the way I work at the Innovation Circle's Jour Fixe. The opportunity for a sourcecode-reading in front of 150 guests at the monthly event of this consulting company was the final impetus to write my eight lines of code. Since I tried to put emphasis on rhythm as well, maybe sourcecode can also be musical.
Articles about Sourcecode and Poetry:
Cramer, Florian: Program Code Poetry
Heiss, Janice J.: The Poetry of Programming
Hopkins, Sharon: Camels and Needles: Computer Poetry Meets the Perl Programming Language