The other day, during the course of my web browsing, I stumbled upon "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. I love that poem, if you've never read it, go ahead and do so, it's a classic. For some reason I was feeling a bit creative at the time (that happens to me sometimes), so I decided to write my own version. Now, I know "The Simpsons" did a version of it, but that was for mass consumption, mine was going to be strictly for programmer consumption :). Anyway, I few hours later (many more than I would have expected, it a freaking long poem), I ended up with the following. Hope you like it (it really helps to read the original before you read this).

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a steaming pile of spaghetti code galore,
While I nodded bored and napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As if some asshole sharply rapping, rapping at my office door
"'Tis my manager," I muttered, "tapping at my office door -
I'll ignore him, nothing more."

Ah distinctly I remember frantic unit test refactors
As my dual screens and laptop cast their light upon the floor
Eagerly I wished for coffee, vainly I had sought for hours
From the web some help or answer for Issue number 424
For that stupid, f*cking issue that Jira named 424,
I had solved it once before.

And that blinking red uncertain, of the build-light by the curtain
Galled me - filled me with annoyance I had never felt before;
With my flow interrupted, at the screen I harshly swore
"Tis my manager the asshole, whose very presence I abhor -
What's he doing at this hour, rapping on my office door; -
I will kill him, that's for sure"

My annoyance growing stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"WHAT!" I thought "just enter, will you, but stop knocking or I'll kill you
Fact is, I was trying to fix this stupid Issue 424
Then my flow was interrupted, when some asshole started rapping, loudly on my office door
How about you knock some more - cause I don't think they heard you on the 22nd floor"
Here I opened wide the door; - Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there scowling, sneering
Dreaming up four-letter words, no mortal dared to dream before
But, the silence was unbroken, so with a final vulgar token
I turned around a whispered loudly, "Back to Issue 424"
And the silent gloomy office echoed - "... Issue 424"
Merely this and nothing more.

Back to my computer turning, with my indignation burning,
Soon again I heard the rapping somewhat louder than before
"WTF, it's my computer, not some asshole at my door
Let me look then at this problem and this mystery explore -
I'll take some deep breaths for a moment and this mystery explore; -
F*ck!!! The build just failed once more!

I cracked my box without a stutter, but then my heart did do a flutter
As with a final fateful sputter a fan fell out on to the floor
And without even trying, it rolled across the whole office
And stopped itself against the wall in a corner by the door
Right below the pic of Dijkstra in the corner by the door
Stopped, and fell, and nothing more.

Then this broken fan beguiling my annoyance into smiling
I thought - "laying in the corner it enhances the decor"
"That was perhaps not unexpected, since I’ve oft before suspected"
That the hardware we're using is from the saintly days of yore,
Tell me how I'll now deal, with Jira Issue 424
Since the build without doubt was as broken as before

Much I marvelled at the errors on my laptop screen so plain,
Though they to my addled brain - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Should be ever cursed with seeing errors at 12:44,
Using nothing but his laptop to fix Issue 424
And the build as yet remained just as broken as before

So there I was just sitting lonely, staring at my laptop only,
Flinging curses, as if my soul in those words I did outpour
"Stupid management", I uttered, "Buys crappy hardware", I muttered
Now any chance I had of sleep was in the corner by the door,
On the morrow I planned, to give those bastards the 'what for'
And the build then failed once more

Startled at the stillness broken by the build-noise loudly spoken
"Doubtless," said I, "this issue - seems a little too hardcore
This code is a complete disaster, I should revert it all to master"
The dudes to blame for this regression have a lot to answer for
"No! I can't waste the work of hours, I know I've solved it once before"
So, I'll revert it nevermore

But the errors from compiling, were still my tired brain beguiling
So I went and got a Coke and slammed it down before the door
Then upon my Aeron sinking I betook myself to thinking
Maybe there was a header that I forgot to link before
Or maybe I forgot an option when I built the code before
But I think that's unrelated to Jira Issue 424

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, it was really quite depressing
And it seemed I'd never find, the key to Issue 424,
This and more I sat divining, was it variable assigning?
No, I have been down that track, 9 hours before
"Just start working!!!" I implore, then I try to build once more
But the build-light remains, as red and blinking as before

Then, methought, the air grew hotter, did the aircon stop working?
Cause that's exactly what I needed, it's as if I'm in a war
"Sh*t," I cried, "what's next, an earthquake - that would make things much simpler
It's as if some deity hates me and is invoking Murphy's Law!
I give up; I'll quaff a Coke and watch my code explode once more",
Sure enough - it dumped the core.

"Laptop, laptop on the table, am I really, truly able
Will I ever comprehend how I solved it all before?
Full of Coke but still undaunted, in a deserted office haunted -
By smelly code full of horrors - tell me truly, I implore -
Will I ever find the key to Issue number 424? - tell me - tell me, I implore"
But the build just fails once more.

"Laptop, laptop on the table, am I really truly able,
By the space that bends above us - by the science we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the next few hours,
It shall find by intuition the key to Issue 424 -
Or maybe I just need more tests to cover Issue 424?"
But the build just fails once more.

"Screw this crap!" I shrieked upstarting, "That's my cue to be departing -
This can wait until tomorrow, for new hardware galore!"
I should have left it for tomorrow and saved myself a bunch of sorrow,
When the fan from my computer rolled across the office floor!
"I am leaving!" I announce, but then to spite me to the core,
The build decides to fail once more.

And the broken fan unwitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
Right below the pic of Dijkstra in the corner by the door;
And the bug still needs resolving, but my brain isn't working,
And the red and blinking build-light still casts shadows on the floor;
I'm still sure I'll fix the issue that Jira named 424
But only after I've calmed down, and only once I've slept some more!

That's it, I'd love to hear what you guys think, just general thoughts or if you have adaptions to make it better, any feedback is welcome. Don't forget to subscribe to my feed if you haven't already :).

Image by Atli Harðarson

No related posts.

Last year I wrote a humorous post, it was a list of words that rhyme with orange. All the words were completely made-up and I gave all of them funny meanings. To my continued surprise it has become the most consistently popular post on my blog (which is really funny for a software development blog, the internet works in mysterious ways :)). As you might know, orange is one of those words in the English language for which it is really difficult to find a rhyme (there are many others like silver, almond etc.). And yet, the majority of the comments on that blog posts are suggestions for some words that people believe rhyme with orange (all incorrect). Some of the other comments express disappointment that they couldn’t find any real words that rhyme with orange in my post. All this tells me 2 things:

1. Most people don’t really know what a rhyme is
2. Many people are really interested in words that rhyme with orange (I don’t know why, but I have learned to accept it :))

I don’t like it when people leave disappointed after reading my blog and this is why I decided to address both of the above points. For those people who believe that door hinge or syringe rhyme with orange, I will give a quick overview of the different types of rhyme. And for the curious few who want to find a real rhyme for orange I will attempt to satisfy your curiosity also.

Perfect Rhymes

When we try to find words that rhyme with each other, we are usually trying to find what’s known as a perfect rhyme (also called a true rhyme). Two words are a perfect rhyme of each other if their final stressed vowel and all sounds following it are identical e.g.:

• sad, bad, mad
• follow, swallow
• ruling, fooling
• etc.

There are 3 types of perfect rhymes:

1. masculine – the stress is on the final syllable of the word (e.g. spent and went)
2. feminine – the stress is on the second last syllable of the word (e.g. passion and fashion)
3. dactylic – the stress is on the third last syllable (e.g. undemocratically and aristocratically)

That is all there is to it. If you want to find perfect rhymes for words, that’s all you need to know.

Imperfect Rhymes

When we use the word rhyme in a general sense (at least as far as words are concerned) we are usually talking about words that sound phonetically similar in some way, but which are not true rhymes. Phonetically similar words can be classified in a number of ways:

• half rhyme – two words have a matching final consonant
• imperfect rhyme – a rhyme between a stressed syllable and an unstressed one
• oblique rhyme – a rhyme where the match in sound is imperfect
• consonance – words have matching consonants
• assonance – words have some matching vowels
• alliteration – words have a matching initial consonant
• etc.

The point is there are many different types of imperfect rhyme, and because of this with some types of imperfect rhyme (such as oblique rhymes) almost any word can be considered an imperfect rhyme of almost any other. In short, it becomes extremely subjective.

Imperfect rhymes can be used in verse (and have been since ancient times), but that does not make them true rhymes, which is what most people would refer to when they talk about rhyme (i.e. in general conversation we tend to use the word rhyme in a strict sense – a perfect rhyme). This is why we can’t really say that door hinge or syringe rhyme with orange. They are certainly imperfect rhymes (since pretty much anything can be), but they are not true rhymes unless we decide to use the word rhyme in it’s general sense (which noone does in day-to-day conversation).

I’ve given only a very basic explanation about rhymes and rhyming and only as far as specific words are concerned. If you want to dig deeper into the ’science’ of poetry, there is a lot more to know about rhyme. How to organize verse, tetrameters, hexameters etc. Feel free to explore if you’re interested (Google is your friend).

What Really Rhymes With Orange

And so we’re back to oranges :). So, are there any real words that perfectly rhyme with orange? Well, it is a little complicated. Technically speaking orange is considered to be a word that doesn’t have any perfect rhymes, however we can always resort to a trick. We can always make up words as long as we make them proper names. You could therefore make up a name that would be a perfect rhyme for orange. Infact such names already exist:

Gorringe – is a family name and if you choose to pronounce it in a particular way it can rhyme with orange.

Blorange – is a mountain in south east Wales. Once again, if you choose to pronounce it in a particular way it will also rhyme with orange. It is however not strictly correct as despite the way it’s spelt, it is not pronounced the same (the correct pronunciation is – Blorins).

The only non-proper-name word that can rhyme with orange is:

Sporange – a plant that produces spores. This one is also arguable since, technically speaking, it should be sporangium rather than sporange since sporangia is the plural form of the word.

That’s it. There are no other words in the English language that can be considered a perfect rhyme of orange, so if you don’t like the above three and don’t want to make up a proper name of your own, you’re out of luck. Personally I don’t like any of the above three words and while I normally have no problems making up words/names when I need to, anything you’re likely to come up with to rhyme with orange will undoubtedly just sounds stupid (try it if you don’t believe me :)).

Image by mattieb

Related posts:

1. Here Are Some Words That Rhyme With Orange!
2. Tweaking English For Fun And Profit … Facilitating Poetry
3. On Teaching And Learning And Knowledge Trans … fening

As a software developer I periodically find that I need to dabble with a bit of poetry (yes one is a consequence of the other – sort of – see my post about software developer traits for an explanation that almost makes sense). However, every time I start dabbling I find myself getting annoyed very quickly. Poetry is difficult and I don’t necessarily mean writing it, even reading it is difficult.

Well, not the actual reading part, but trying to puzzle a meaning out of the twisted phrasing, allegory and the absolutely stupendous number of hoops that people jump through to get the darned things to rhyme. And are they always successful? Well, you can be the judge, here is a “fine example” called Gap Toothed Know-It-All.

I am thinking English is just not a very flexible language, there are all these rules and regulations you have to follow, or the grammar police will eat you alive. Well, I spit in the face of the grammar police, I say, why should I adjust to English? English should be forced to adjust to my needs. We don’t need to do any major changes, but just tweak it a little bit. I’ll demonstrate with an example.

I want to write a poem which will convey the following thoughts:

I like walking in the park on sunny days. I find that it makes me more productive and focused at work.

Here is what the poem would have to sound like without tweaking English in any way:

Not too bad, gets the meaning across, but is too long-winded and so much unnecessary allegory! Would you even know what I was trying to say if I hadn’t told you?

Let us try this again, but now we can tweak English to suit our purposes:

See, this is much better, short and sweet and almost no extraneous words to clutter up the verse. The meaning is completely transparent, if you didn’t know what I was trying to convey you’d easily be able to work it out almost exactly.

So, I threw in a little bit of slang and made up some new words by “tweaking” the endings of some existing ones to facilitate rhyming, so what? The funny thing is that the meaning of the words I “tweaked” is still obvious. Everyone can easily tell what the un-tweaked versions of the words are.

To summarise, doing some minor creative surgery on the English language allows us to not only maintain clarity and create more compact verse, but also to completely retain the meaning of all the tweaked content :).

So I put this to you, why shouldn’t we tweak language? I tweak my code all the time to make it more compact, more concise and more readable. And yet here is poetry, coming in and doing the exact opposite. I tell you, it conceptually undermines the structure, clarity and higher productivity that we as software developers are trying to bring to the world. And anyway it surely is against some sort of best practice somewhere. Right? Am I right???

This post has been marked with my funny flag:

For other example of flag usage see this post marked with my sarcasm flag. It is so sad that I have to do this, but otherwise some people would undoubtedly take this post seriously and try to sic the grammar police, poetry police and who knows what other police on me.

Related posts:

1. The Anatomy Of A Rhyme And What Really Rhymes With Orange
2. Here Are Some Words That Rhyme With Orange!
3. The Raven 2.0