Lumifer comments on Stupid Questions January 2015 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Gondolinian 01 January 2015 02:30AM

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Comment author: polymathwannabe 08 January 2015 01:25:08PM -1 points [-]

I don't understand sign language, but in recent years I've become a fan of sign language poetry. Some of my acquaintances seem surprised that poetry is possible in sign language, but I think everything that can communicate can be used beautifully. Then today an idea struck me: can you make poetry in a programming language? I'm sure there is some sense in which an algorithm may feel "beautiful," but is that poetry? And if that isn't, what would be?

Comment author: Lumifer 08 January 2015 04:28:43PM 2 points [-]

People write poetry in Perl. Notably, here is a well-known piece by Larry Wall.