Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Matthew Garrett (mjg59@nondeterministic.computer)'s status on Saturday, 18-Apr-2026 18:46:43 JST Matthew Garrett

   (Yes ok there are cases where code is beauty and embodies an idea that could make a grown man cry and:

   (1) your code is not that code
   (2) you would think nothing of copying the creative aspect of that code if you needed to don't fucking lie to me)

   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Saturday, 18-Apr-2026 18:46:42 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @mjg59
     
     > There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose.
     
     "There's no possibility for prose to be beautiful. There's no way to turn 'What time is it?' into life-changing prose."
     
     > (1) your code is not that code
     
     Maybe *yours* isn't.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 03:54:35 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @mjg59 If you measure prose by looking at corporate emails and VCR manuals, then you come to the same conclusion.
     
     When I write prose, I'm putting my thoughts into English. When I write code, I'm telling my thoughts to a machine.
     
     Even a little script, I'm teaching the machine how I want to talk to it. I put it in ~/bin and I've taught the computer a word. I build up my little environment where the machine and I understand each other. Dick Gabriel, the "Worse is Better" author, said:
     
     > I'm always delighted by the light touch and stillness of early programming languages. Not much text; a lot gets done. Old programs read like quiet conversations between a well-spoken research worker and a well-studied mechanical colleague, not as a debate with a compiler. Who'd have guessed sophistication bought such noise?
     
     If style and thoughts couldn't come out through the code, he wouldn't be able to say something like that.
     
     ken, when describing his compiler bug, started off talking about adding '\v' to the C compiler. First he hard-coded the numeric value for '\v': `if(c == 'v') return 11;`. Then, because the C compiler was written in C, he could write `if(c == 'v') return '\v';`. And he said "It is as close to a 'learning' program as I have ever seen." He's taught the machine. A lot of people have read the paper, but you can go read ken's code, a lot of it is out there. (You can download a CD image, mount it, and look at his code: http://9legacy.org/download.html .) You can see a style of thinking, you can see ken in his code. Maybe you can't see someone's personality in a four-page technical manual that comes with your refrigerator, maybe you can't see someone's personality in a webapp at your day job, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to create something beautiful.
     
     Here is a small program:
     
     echo '++++[->++++<]>[-<+++++>>+++++++>++<<]<------.>>+++++.--.+.>.<[-<+>>>+<<]>[--<++>>-<]>---.+++++++++++++.+.<<<.>>>-------.---.<<<--.>.>>+++.-------.++.++[->+<<+>]>++++++.<<.<<.>[-<<->>]<<++++.[>>>--<<<-]>>>+.' | \
     sed -E 's/(.)/\1\n/g' | \
     awk 'BEGIN{print "BEGIN{p=0;"}END{print "}"}/\./{print "printf \"%c\",a[p]"}/\+/{print "a[p]++"}/-/{print "a[p]--"}/</{print "p--"}/>/{print "p++"}/\[/{print "while(a[p]){"}/\]/{print "}"}' | \
     awk -f /dev/fd/0
     
     Every coder I have showed this program to in person has laughed: why did they laugh?
     p761-thompson.pdf
   • Embed this notice
     Matthew Garrett (mjg59@nondeterministic.computer)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 03:54:38 JST Matthew Garrett

     in reply to

     • pistolero

     @p If you're doing something other than

     var++

     then you're doing something wrong. Code is instructions to a machine. The description of what that code does may be creative, if the actual implementation is then you are almost certainly in a bad place.

   • Embed this notice
     Ray McCarthy (raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 04:12:55 JST Ray McCarthy

     in reply to

     • pistolero

     @mjg59 @p
     You don't understand IP/Copyright or maybe even actual programming, of which actual coding or editing code should be a minority of the effort.

     You're simply promoting theft for the sake of convenience. The USA & China companies are simply ignoring the laws in their training.

     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 04:24:54 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • Ray McCarthy
     @raymaccarthy @mjg59 I don't really hate LLMs per se, but they do generate this soulless "enterprisey" code as an artifact of how they're trained. The thing that rubbed me the wrong way about the series of posts was mainly that it's this call to mediocrity.
     
     And then he uses Roast Beef as an example; Roast Beef is severely depressed and has this pathological self-deprecation and also is not a real hacker: he's a drawing of a dog. But one of the reasons Achewood sticks with people is Onstad is brilliant with his use of language and is pretty good at sketching personalities. There are people that say comics are not art, Ebert went to his grave insisting video games cannot be art, this guy is saying to the reader, specifically, that some code can be art but then says "Your code sucks, it's never going to be beautiful" and he uses this guy as an example:
     2007-02-02
   • Embed this notice
     Agartha_Noble (agartha_noble@shortstacksran.ch)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 08:40:49 JST Agartha_Noble

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     • Ray McCarthy
     @p @raymaccarthy @mjg59 There's nothing code can be EXCEPT art. Modern high-level languages have so many different ways to skin a cat that you need a strong dogma just to be able to complete anything more complex than a MySpace page.
     
     A lot of code preference is entirely arbitrary, but the preference itself is required; else, you become The Framework Guy.
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Sunday, 19-Apr-2026 08:43:10 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • Agartha_Noble
     • Ray McCarthy
     @AGARTHA_NOBLE @mjg59 @raymaccarthy I mean, it takes a lot of discipline to remove the soul from some prose; I think code's not any different.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 20-Apr-2026 20:22:47 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @mjg59 @p "var++" is wrong unless you want postincrement.
     
     The correct GNU C is; ++var;
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Apr-2026 03:29:33 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     @Suiseiseki @mjg59 Don't they do the reverse-comparison stuff too? `if(0==i)`?
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Apr-2026 14:59:15 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p @mjg59 Reverse-comparison stuff is kind of badly formed, as you want to check if i is equal to 0, not 0 is equal to i - although in this case either way has the same result.
     
     I much prefer the shorthand way - as there's no point typing 3 characters when 1 will do without causing ambiguity; `if (!i){}`
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Apr-2026 16:31:58 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     @Suiseiseki @mjg59 Well, "1==i" or whatever. Some people do it to avoid accidentally typing `if(i=1)`.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Apr-2026 17:15:07 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p @mjg59 It really isn't that hard to make sure to type == when you want to do a comparison and = when you want to assign.
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Apr-2026 17:15:27 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     @Suiseiseki @mjg59 I think so but I also think postincrement is fine as the default.