A Ruby program that generates itself through a 128-language quine loop

Post by polycaster » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

Post by obfuscationeso » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #6

I am amazed. I have no idea how the hell could the author even do that. Apparently, they have a book called "The world of obfuscated, esoteric, artistic programming", but it seems to be written in Japanese. I hope it will be translated to English someday, so I may learn this dark sorcery.

Post by ohwellhere » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #21

lifthrasiir wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is amazing, I should point out that for most languages he only needs to understand enough syntax to print strings and possibly unquote them. If you actually run this program into the first language, Ruby, the actual code (meant to be a Rust code) is as follows: fn main(){print!("{}",("object QR extends App{print(\"(display \\\"printf(\\\\\\\"1d;s/.//;s/1/ the sum of a son and0/g;s/0/ twice/g;s/2/You are as…

Printing and unquoting strings is enough to write an ordinary quine (although getting it exactly right is still quite subtle). Making a quine relay is substantially more complicated, because you don't just print the quoted string, you have to print the quoted version of a string in a different language, but that unwraps to the same thing 128 applications later! If you still think it's easy, I reckon you should write…

Post by behnamoh » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #27

whage wrote: post #25

Ken Thompson wrote in his famous paper [1] about quines: > If you have never done this, I urge you to try it on your own. The discovery of how to do it is a revelation that far surpasses any benefit obtained by being told how to do it Every once in a while I give them a try but I couldn't yet create one and it frustrates me very much. Afraid of being denied that "revelation" I never dared to read his paper past that…

It's easier in some languages than others. There is a delight in doing it, but don't overdo the anticipation. I've found greater delights in programming.

Post by titzer » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

whage wrote: post #25

Ken Thompson wrote in his famous paper [1] about quines: > If you have never done this, I urge you to try it on your own. The discovery of how to do it is a revelation that far surpasses any benefit obtained by being told how to do it Every once in a while I give them a try but I couldn't yet create one and it frustrates me very much. Afraid of being denied that "revelation" I never dared to read his paper past that…