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Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

sangwine.net

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Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#41

I'll be interested to hear comments from fellow hackers. Reactions from colleagues have been... varied. Jim Sangwine

> The k array represents knowledge or experience.

Perhaps you might wish to name your variables? The tattoo will be read more often than it is written.

Personally, I like to name anonymous functions (function foo () {}) so when a stack trace occurs, you know where. For example, if you get a second tattoo in future!

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#42
post #28

And in 2060 developers will probably think something like what would think today, if shown a tattoo of "ALTER X TO PROCEED TO Y" in the flaccid forearm of a 70-year-old. Still, much, much better than those at Hanzi Smatter [ http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/ ].

Speaking for myself, if I saw a COBOL tattoo, I'd most likely think "Duuuude, old school... respect!" ;) Not so sure about JS though - is it perhaps more likely to seem like Visual Basic in 40 years? As a JS monkey myself, though, I like it* :) As for alternatives... would a Lisp tattoo be better? * Apart from the i coming out of nowhere, which keeps setting off my this-is-a-bug alarm ;)

Well, I was thinking more about the contrast between the supposed permanence of tattoo and a programming language construct. Now that you have pointed it, however, it might give a certain feeling of "old school" ("self modifying code in COBOL!?") -- and I expect closures to be still "reverenced" in 2060.

And of course a Lisp tattoo would be better! ;)

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#45
post #24
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems you did not realize that you are replying to the tattoo's owner. However, your point stands if I mentally modify some pronouns and expresses my own sentiments as well. Tattoos, piercings, hair coloring, makeup, clothing are often for ourselves, not for being pretentious.

Tattoos, piercings, hair coloring, makeup, clothing are often for ourselves, not for being pretentious. And yet he posts it on the web, and specifically asks for other people's opinions. In my experience people who very much care what others think of them, often claim not care what others think of them.

Maybe there are people who are interested in positive observations and constructive feedback from others, but don't care if others don't like them and choose to ignore non-constructive criticism.

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#46
The problem (and the feature) of tattoos is their permanence - what would you want to live with for the rest of your life? Not an easy question for an engineer who embraces change.

The solution as usual is to add a level of indirection - a tattoo of a QR code pointing to a URL. That way when you change your girlfriend you can change the content.

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#47
When I was a younger game programmer, I considered for a while getting a tattoo of:

  function intersectRect(r1, r2) {
    return !(r2.left > r1.right || 
           r2.right  r1.bottom ||
           r2.bottom 
After many other tattoos, some spur-of-the-moment and some thoroughly considered for years, I realized that I like my spur-of-the-moment ones a lot more. They never had any significance to lose, whereas the well-thought-out ones are more embarrassingly telling of what I once thought was so deep and passionate, which all turned out to look naive after a few years.

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#49
post #13

Do you remember the hacker emblem? http://catb.org/hacker-emblem/

How about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Eden_(cellular_automa...

I'd go with this one: http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/index.php?title=Garden_of_Ede...

It is the smallest Garden of Eden, is rotationally symmetric, evolves to nothing, and looks cool.

Re: Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

#50
post #33

This will be fun once the language's popularity wanes. Imagine an old guy on his walker with an "IDENTIFICATION DIVISION." tattoo… As for this particular item, I'm not a big tattoo fan in general and have a particular disdain for writing – it's usually pretty bad typography. While this isn't all-caps badly kerned blackletter, it kinda looks like someone invented an automated prison tattoo maker. Sorry. PS: I know, be…

The durability of tattoo's subject does not matter in the slightest if a tattoo is done to record a moment in one's life rather than to impress other boys in geriatric care. And that's exactly what this guy did.

One thing I would agree with you on though - what an odd typography choice. Why not a monospaced typeface?! :)

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