Tag: code

haiku xml

<haiku title=”haiku xml” author=”Paul Guernsey”>
<lines>
<line soundcount=”5″>human friendly code</line>
<line soundcount=”7″>information wrapped in tags</line>
<line soundcount=”5″>machine readable</line>
</lines>
</haiku>

[blank renku] promises

 at the end of day;
 the unexpected happens; 
 promises not kept; 

Developer with good intentions writes.
He codes until the end of day, or more,
and wanting more than just to do his job,
he promises to get things done for you.

Paul Guernsey, © 2019

[1] blank renku – a form of linked verse, written by one or multiple authors in alternating collaboration. Blank renku differs from renku in that stanzas alternate between haiku form, and blank verse. The shortest blank verse stanza would be a couplet. The longest would fill a Post It note, the original (fictional) medium of blank renku, as invented for The Blank Verse Mystery. Variations are expected.

Blank renku can be played as a game, in the original spirit of renku. It merges poetry from East and West. Writers can choose to write in their stronger form or in their weaker one, and in this way it is similar to the game of THUD.[2]

[2] THUD –  [see also Terry Pratchett’s 34th Discworld novel Thud!] “Thud is a strategic [board] game based on the ancient struggle between Dwarf and Troll…Players take turns to play the fast moving Dwarfs as they attempt to trap Trolls in a carefully constructed ambush, then take the part of the fearless Trolls who lumber slowly yet powerfully around the board. You can learn to play in a matter of minutes, and no two games are ever the same.” – discworldemporium.com



Process Guys

The guys who track the progress of our work
forgotten or extraneous are not.
Confusion reigns without their careful notes
in color coded spreadsheets daily new.
The endless meetings they endure, discussing
details, sorting wheat from dusty chaff,
requirements from merely wishful thought.

The Process Guy. The guy we once were taught
to do without, but now with certainty 
would rather not. Especially the one
who does his job so well that we forget
how tedious our tasks had been before,
or just how troublesome our lives become
under the guy who does his Process Stuff
with far less skill, for trust me,
troublesome is far too sweet a word.

Paul Guernsey Player © 2018/10/17

Null Reference

A slight bit less than nothing, just a space
where you could put a little something in.
You know just where to find it, if you just
had found the time to see it really was
a thing and set its address down right here.

I'm just a symbol of an object, not
the thing you want, itself, and if you ask
me for the thing before you told me where
it was, I'll throw you an exception hot,
which you had better be prepared to catch
or lacking that prepare to meet your Doom
and die a painful unexpected death.

Much better 'tis to wear a leather glove,
a catcher's mitt with which to soften blows,
or better yet to peek inside the orb
before you try to take a deadly sip
of nothing from inside. So much more comes
from nothing sipped when thirsting for the thing.
A thirst so great that it affects the mind,
and renders naught the seeker's very self.

© 2018, Paul Guernsey Player

Code Cowboy

The user tells us what he wants, and so the job begins.
A wink, a nod, a tiny plan, forgetting former sins.

We code and test, and code and test, and then we test again.
So, is it done? Oh no, not yet. I’m guessing nine of ten.

An incremented version num, it’s ready to deploy.
An email to the user now, and I’m a Code Cowboy!

Code Cowboy

Paul Guernsey Player, © 2018/07/16

Fourteener: iambic heptameter