Can code be poetic?

can code be poetic?

#!/usr/bin/perl 

APPEAL: 

listen (please, please); 

open yourself, wide; 
    join (you, me), 
    connect (us,together), 

tell me. 

do something if distressed; 

    @dawn, dance; 
    @evening, sing; 
    read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful; 
    study if able; 

    write me if-you-please; 

sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone); 

            do*not*die (like this) 
            if sin abounds; 

keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;

do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet.

                    accept (yourself, changes), 
                    bind (grief, despair); 

require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment; 

select (always), length(of-days) 

# listen (a perl poem) 
# Sharon Hopkins 
# rev. June 19, 1995 docstore.mik.ua/orelly/perl/prog3/ch27_02.htm

Yes! Even Shakespeare agrees:

There is an esoteric language called Rockstar, a Turing-complete language where the code is like a song lyrics. Here is how FizzBuzz looks like:

 Midnight takes your heart and your soul
 While your heart is as high as your soul
 Put your heart without your soul into your heart

 Give back your heart


 Desire is a lovestruck ladykiller
 My world is nothing 
 Fire is ice
 Hate is water
 Until my world is Desire,
 Build my world up
 If Midnight taking my world, Fire is nothing and Midnight taking my world, Hate is nothing
 Shout "FizzBuzz!"
 Take it to the top

 If Midnight taking my world, Fire is nothing
 Shout "Fizz!"
 Take it to the top

 If Midnight taking my world, Hate is nothing
 Say "Buzz!"
 Take it to the top

 Whisper my world

I guess we can say that it is somehow poetic?

The experiences one creates with code can be poetic but as words without intent can seldom be called poetry nor can code without form.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt.
Leonardo da Vinci

I tried to make that sound arty, did it work 😉?

Ada Lovelace, mathematician and widely considered first programmer, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, would most certainly answer your question with a yes. Her mother pushed her into math and science to try to distance her from her father. And Ada once wrote to her mother as a response something like: "If you can’t give me poetry, can’t you give me poetical science?"

code is anti-poetic, so when you write code, you basically write an anti-poem, especially when you're working for the industry, you're anti-poetic, that doesn't mean its non-poetic, because writing code is a creative habit, just as writing a poem is, because existence is non-poetic, and non-existence is poetic, there isnt anything less poetic than the poet himself, but in the aetherical battle of a sleep-deprived individual against the frivolous capitalist system, the machine-leviathan, taming the dragon, befriending him, making him compliant and his endeavor fruitful, his work may feel poetic, but for the reality it is too late, now that he has become a robot. I would also say any poem is an anti-poem, because it means reinventing language and its use, therefore id say there are ways to write poetic code, like an elegant solution is always poetic in sense that it counts for programs as well as for a dance. furthermore a poem isnt more poetic if it is written in another language, it must be like music, always in the right language and tone, that means if you write a poem in code-style it is like noise-music, words are words, vibration is vibration, a rose is a rose.
in summary to clear some things up: written words are subset of poetry, and code is a subset of written words, but those are only the levers of the machine. flattering poems are a way to try program and failsafe the heart of human. but a heart must be free, and a robot must do its duty.

I think code can be beautiful and satisfying for its own sake. I know that nowadays there's a lot of focus on shipping quickly, but I take a lot of joy in writing beautiful code - not because it will make the product better for users, but because it makes me happy.

That's also one of the aspects I love about Ruby and Ruby on Rails - they give a damn about developer happiness. You can find some good examples in the Rails Doctrine.

I have a t-shirt that says; "Code is my poetry". Yes, definitely code can be poetry ... :)

A lot of the examples here are either code written to read like English language poetry, or mention programs that output something poetic. I'm not sure this was what the OP was getting at...

I do believe code can be poetic. One sense of 'poetic' is:

having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression.

It's certainly possible to use language constructs in imaginative and creative ways - often resulting in code that is elegant and unique, sometimes reinterpreting or shining an entirely different light on code syntax and grammar.

Code like this could certainly be considered poetic IMO. All art is subjective

There is an esoteric programming language called Shakespeare In which programs are written as a play.

And then there is a poetic language

Also, you can write poetic code in perl or ruby, There is a community website called perlmonk where people frequently submit piece of code written in a poem. There are few other eso langs which produce quite poetic code, like rockstar, or even Ook! can be quite rhyming.