Software has its own language.
IF. THEN. ELSE.
GIVEN. WHEN. THEN.
WHILE.
We normally use those words to describe logic, behaviour and repetition. I started wondering what would happen if the same structures were used for something they were never designed for: poetry.
For example:
GIVEN a team that collaborates right,
WHEN a smooth deployment takes flight,
THEN new features deliver customer ______.
Or:
IF every pull request gets fresh eyes,
THEN code quality will steadily rise.
ELSE falling standards won't be a ______.
Then there is wordplay hiding inside technical language:
Good deSIGN is a sign of respect for the user.
The experiment gradually grew beyond a few programming jokes. Software engineering has plenty of material for poetry: flaky tests, technical debt, pull requests, deployments, retrospectives, ownership, team culture, AI, leadership, UX, quality, and the small absurdities of everyday engineering life.
The result became a collection called:
Poems, Puzzles & Proverbs for Tech
Rhyme, Wit & Wordplay, from Engineers to CEOs.
It includes IF-THEN-ELSE poems, Given-When-Then verses, rewritten sayings, hidden-word puzzles, longer poems, WHILE-loop pieces, and short observations about the craft.
I'm curious whether this format works for people who don't normally think of themselves as poetry readers. My aim was everyday language, recognisable engineering situations, and strong rhyme rather than literary complexity.
The Kindle edition is free for three days: Tuesday (25 Aug), Wednesday (26 Aug) and Thursday (27 Aug), based on Amazon's US Pacific Time promotion window.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGB3TYYT
If you take a look, I'd be interested in which format works best for you: conditional logic, BDD, hidden words, loops, or the longer poems.
Until the next commit...
The IT Ink Poet
Top comments (0)