average life

This site is run by software called WordPress.  Wordpress is “open source”, which means that anyone is free to go to WordPress.org, download the software, and take a look at the innards to see how they tick, which may or may not render the software completely inoperable and the tinkerer utterly despondent after doubting his own intelligence and wondering whether his film degree meant anything at all.

But before delving into the emotional roller coaster that is open source software, one should notice the small slogan that is at the bottom of the WordPress.org site.  It only consists of three small words:

CODE IS POETRY

The juxtaposition of the first and last word is enough to give pause: code…poetry?  At first glance, one  might easily assume that this merely a byproduct of a tech culture in which nerdy men (and a few women…somewhere) use words like “ninja”, “guru”, or “rockstar” to illustrate their coding prowess.  This culture even has its own celebrities who, unlike Hollywood celebrities, often have a “guy next door” look to them (and not a “cover model of Men’s Health wearing a polo shirt and khaki shorts” kind of “guy next door” look, but like the Asian guy who actually lives next door to me kind of look).  The statement “code is poetry” merely comes across as a desperate attempt for engineering types to prove to their settling girlfriends that while they may have spent the entire evening playing Fallout 3, they really are quite sensitive and that they do express that sensitivity.  …With computers.

But casting aside our Digg.com-infused cynicism for a moment and taking another look at the assertion that code is poetry, one can start to see the case for it.  At the base level, both computer code and poetry are means of communicating, both can be used convey intense emotion (such as obsession or mental illness), and both are also likely to be rejected for broadcast by This American Life (stupid Ira Glass).  While PRI may not agree, both code and poetry do share a certain beauty that grows from the constraints of strict syntax.

Take the following simple program written in PHP:

echo "Hello World.";

When run by a computer server with PHP software installed, this program will output:

Hello World.

Pretty simple, right?  Yet at the same time, kind of poetic.  The program has its own particular structure as dictated by the software language.  “Hello World” is the traditional first program you write when you are learning a new language.  To output the same “Hello World” in other languages:

In C++:

cout << "Hello World";

In Java:

System.out.println("Hello World!");

In Python:

print "Hello, World!"

Just like there are different structural rules for making a sonnet, terza rima, or limerick, different code languages have their own rules for punctuation and grammar.  We’re going to stick with PHP for our code example because it is the most elegant (read: easiest).  PHP uses the command “echo” for displaying words on the screen.

echo "Hello World.";

I mean, just look at that statement for a second.  You can almost hear the poor, lonely web developer screaming into the void that is his full-height cubicle as they start to press in closer and closer around him, furiously typing out “echo ‘Hello World.'” as he struggles with the task of learning (yet another) computer language for his company only to hear the faint reply back, “Hello World.”  One might think I’m reading too much into this single line of script, but let’s take for a moment the following haiku by Kyoshi Takahama:

A gold bug –
I hurl into the darkness
and feel the depth of night.

Alright, then.  I find the idea of screaming “Hello World” into the void to have a bit more gravitas than chucking yellow insects.  But who’s to say, really?

The main point that code and poetry share is their fundamental nature: they are both instruction sets.  Code is used to instruct a computer or mechanical device on the actions it should take in a given situation while poetry is used to instruct a human mind on what and how to think and feel.  A difference between the two is that code is much more effective.  While each computer may have differences in configuration or operating systems, there is much more of a tendency towards heterogeneity in computers than there is between human beings.  A computer program will simply run or not depending on that computer’s environment, but a poem for a human being may inspire emotions or actions completely unforeseen by the poem’s author.  The interpreter of humans is unwieldy, indeed.

Reaching philosophy aside, it can be safely argued that coding is, in essence, writing.  The only real difference between coding and writing in the traditional sense is the audience.  Writers write for people.  Coders write for machines (and for other coders, I suppose).  Conveying information to humans via stories involves such structures as plot, characters, settings, etc.  Conveying information to computers via programs involves concepts such as algorithms, variables, and functions.  The idea is the same, it’s just the execution that is different.

So, fine, WordPress, insist that code is poetry.  Works for me.  ee cumming’s stuff looks a lot like Ruby, anyways.