Songs in the key of nerd*

Editor’s Note: Hey, we’ve got a new name on Inside the Nerdery. This is Ryan Kucera’s first post. He’ll be popping in from time to time with some nerdery for you to enjoy.

Control structures and code syntax becomes second language to us programmers, almost literally. It’s very common to find complex commentary communicated with terse code snippets – for example, searching Twitter for common PHP keywords pulls up some real gems.

Some time ago, my brother (a C++ nerd) and I had the following IM conversation, in which we attempted to best each other with witty source-code versions of song lyrics. Yeah, yeah, most of these won’t compile; most are considered “pseudo-code.” Take a look, and see if you can recognize these tunes!

1. Joel says:
   if( tan(bull) ) ! const & noop();

2. Joel says:
   do {
       triangle(can);
   } while (triangleman);

3. Ryan says:
   my $blue; 2*($d); for (1..2) { die(); }

4. Ryan says:
   while ($me->getUp()) {
       knock($me,”down”);
   }

5. Joel says:
   while (beer.bottles.quantity > 0)
   {
       take_down(bottle = beer.get_bottle(1)):
       pass_arround(bottle);
   }

6. Joel says:
   boat.row();
   boat.row();
   boat.row();
   go(upstream, gently);

7. Joel says:
   char * word;
   if (word[4] = ‘d’ && word[3] == ‘l’ && word[2] = r)
   {
       // it’s the end of the “world”
       // and we know it.
   }

Editor’s Note: *Trip Shakespeare, my cubemate, is demanding proper credit for his rather witty headline. I got his proper credit right here.