Error messages in Haiku? | Hacker News Reader

Error messages in Haiku?

gnu.org

164 pointsboredgamer239 comments

Normal error message in Perl:

    $ perl -Mstrict -e 'say $x'
    Global symbol "$x" requires explicit package name (did you forget to declare "my $x"?) at -e line 1.
    Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

With the addition of `Coy` module [1]:

    $ perl -Mstrict -MCoy -e 'say $x'

        -----
        Gautama dies near
        a monastry. Two woodpeckers
        fly over the lake.
        -----

                Or Wunt's commentary...

                Global symbol "$x" requires explicit package name (did you
                forget to declare "my $x"?)

                        (Analects of -e: line 1.
                         Execution of -e aborted due to compilation
                         errors.)

[1]: https://metacpan.org/pod/Coy

A few times a month/year I'll get some email because the sender made a typo of the domain they wanted. Postmaster notifies them with:

    your mistake not mine
    email sent to wrong address
    retry with more care

The old Net+ errors[1] are still golden. My favorite:

  A file that big?
  It might be very useful
  But now it is gone.

[1] https://8325.org/haiku/

Juniper networking equipment has a hidden CLI command that spits out a nerdy or sleep deprived haiku:

E.G

  Juniper> show version and haiku;

  IS-IS Screams,
  BGP peer flapping;
  I want my mommy!

  TTL down one
  the end nearer with each hop
  little packet, poof.

  Amazing photons
  Carry our data worldwide
  Never seem to stop

  My session is dead:
  Forgot to commit confirm.
  Where are my car keys?

For some reason, it’s hard to find all of them compiled in one place. I think it changes over time depending on the version of JUNOS and the hardware platform.

It was always a little uplifting when you had an incident occurring and you needed a little something—anything—to keep you going (:

What is it with Haiku? The whole 5-7-5 structure just doesn't ring true with me at all. I mean, I get that it is enigmatic, but it just seems like it's enigmatic purely by virtue of not having any other redeeming quality.

  Creativity
  gets amplified by constraints;
  Structure is journey

As a (sparsely) published poet, I find most English Haiku not particularly inspiring. There may be an aesthetic quality in Japanese Haiku that does not happen when using other languages, or there just may be a large body of bad Japanese Haiku that non-native speakers never learn about.

I believe that the reasons that attract mediocre poets to Haiku are:

* They follow a formula that is easy to understand and reproduce.

* They are short.

So it's reasonably easy to produce something that fits the form, and mediocre poets will leave it at that and not reflect on whether the result is any good.

In general, I think beginning poets prefer somewhat more formal poetry, but even a Sonnet takes a bit of effort, and something like a Villanelle or a Sestina gets quite hard already.

a "correct" haiku is supposed to have a conceptual juxtaposition and a traditional seasonal reference in addition to the syllable count

after reading a lot of them, I don't think either the poems or the form translates well to english

This reminds me how some Russian poets in the year 2000 decided that as a replacement to the elements of Haiku lost during an adaptation they need to create a new dimension to it, and so Huiku (Хуйку, from the Russian swear word хуй (dick)) was made which additionally requires first letters of every line to combine into a Russian cursing.

Here is the manifest: https://lleo.me/huiku/manifest.htm

It contains an example:

    Сижу один под кустом, 
    Рот открыл в изумленье. 
    Удивительно лес красив.

Which literally translates into "I am sitting alone under a bush, My mouth is open in awe. The forest is amazingly beautiful." and first letters of each line combine into "сру" which means "I am shitting".

May be similar idea can be used for English. Sadly English has way less three letter swear words than Russian.

Comparing what is described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku with what I usually read in "Haiku'ified" content (such as these error messages), it doesn't surprise me that I also found most Haikus largely pointless. On top of the 17 syllables aspect, "good" Haikus seem to involve:

- Some form of contrast, tension or juxtaposition (see "cutting word").

- Your mind having to "color in" the scene around the written words (see "metonym"), leaving you with deeper imagery.

- Importantly, they are not just a dull sentence condensed to 17 syllables with line breaks added.

But I'm probably as far from an expert on this as you could be. I just wanted to share my realization that most Haikus you encounter on the internet are probably missing key elements compared to "real" poetic ones, thus making the format seem bland.

Also, can't let a good xkcd opportunity go to waste: https://xkcd.com/1045/

If you weren't aware, haiku is a Japanese poetry form. It works much better in Japanese than in English, as one might expect.

Random examples of 5-7-5 texts in Japanese I found on Twitter:

- 送料は別途発生いたします(“Shipping calculated separately”)

- やかましい山に埋めるぞ六甲の(“shut up will bury you in mountain in Rokko”)

- 国内で確認された感染者(“infected individuals identified domestically”)

- 浴衣着て自撮りをすると怒られる(“taking selfies in Yukata will get blamed”)

- コンパイラバックエンド部全削除(“nuking compiler backend sections”)

- ラオスではコアラのマーチが大人気(“Coala’s March(snack) is quite popular in Laos”)

So I think more than half of its value has to be with something inherent to Japanese(language)

One of my favorites (by Issa):

    This world of dew
    is a world of dew,
    and yet, and yet.

  What I’d love to see
  is this for HTTP —
  status code haikus

  Error 404:
  The item you are seeking
  Cannot be found here

This is particularly good. Apart from the already mentioned seasonal references, a common element is that the thirst two lines should seem completely unrelated and the third one provides synthesis/closure.

Web browser of BeOS showed errors in haikus, which later led its open source successor to be named Haiku OS.

https://github.com/3digitdev/Haiku-TTP-Codes

I posted this on HN just a bit ago after seeing this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173899

Clearly someone has not used Beos.

For reference: https://gist.github.com/benjaminoakes/e58a9ddb0ead8eefbbae40...

Coincidentally, the open source remake of BeOS is called Haiku

That isn't just a coincidence: https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq/#where-does-the-name-haik...

Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / Windows is like that

Reflecting an understanding of the state of computing usability last updated in the early 90s.

> ‘I just installed KB4512941 and now Windows Search is broke and Cortana process in taskmanager takes 90% CPU,’ a Windows user wrote on Reddit.

> On Twitter, one gamer shared his pain after the update stopped his favourite game from working properly.

> ‘Very cool that Skyrim is broken,’ he wrote.

> ‘Yet another thing Windows updates has ruined for me. They’ve taken everything from me.’

- https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/09/microsoft-admits-windows-10-b...

(Or find your own counterexamples: https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+update+destroyed )

Windows update is the #1 reason I even ever moved to linux in the first place.

- you can run updates whenever you like. no nag screens, no automatic reboots

- even when you do run updates you don't usually need to reboot and if you do need to reboot you can choose when to do so yourself.

- updates don't install ads or other unwanted crap

- (on debian at least) updates don't tend to break anything.

- no stalling boot

- no stalling shutdown -- I can't count the amount of times I've stayed up late because windows update was preventing shutdown.

- still automatic updates if you want with all of these advantages.

Old news

Yes. so? Just because you and I know that windows update is awful in comparison to package managers on linux doesn't mean everyone does.

Of course you could have dozens of mac users working from home during the crisis, where a minor version VPN update requires an os upgrade but if you upgrade the os some other software won't work.

I've lost count of how many Windows updates Microsoft have had to retract over the last few years.

Some Linux distros are like that too. The users are just better at figuring out why. (I recall updating Ubuntu breaking DNS and killing my internet, and tracking down the issue to needing a new symlink after a service was changed or something like that)

Edit: Helps when it's open source.

Application b0rked; no we have no plans to fix: systemd installed.

The greatest error message in Haiku ever was:

I am so sorry.

Something struck me in the rear.

I just ... wound up ... here.

https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Transcript:The_Tales_of_Ba_Si...

These are lovely and lighthearted with a 5-7-5 structure, but for anyone interested in how English might actually express the spirit and content and structure of haiku, here's a nice article.[1] Or, of course, WP as a jumping off point.[2]

But long live creativity in constrained form, whatever the label!

[1] http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/2011/02/english-haiku-a-co...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_in_English

    I ate your Web page.
    Forgive me, it was juicy
    and tart on my tongue.

(MIT 404 error from the early web)

It's a shame that the word haiku is now used for any arbitrary collection of 3 lines with none of what would actually make them a haiku.

And what would that be? They follow the 5-7-5 structure, are you just disappointed by the lack of juxtaposition of something?

(Disclaimer: not a poetry buff, just reading other comments)

Well, I'm not a poetry buff either, but my superficial understanding is that a haiku is characterized by humour and ambiguity, so that it would leave you contemplating multiple possible senses, perhaps each one funnier or more intriguing than the next. And perhaps there would be some tension in understanding which meaning would be most intended, as it were. "...expressing much and suggesting more in the fewest possible words." (Britannica) I think a lot of contemporary haiku express little and suggest nothing.

Nothing wrong with the page or the writing there, I'm only saying that as the word is increasingly used in a more superficial way as I think is the case here, the historical form of poetry known as haiku has no name of its own any more, which becomes a problem especially in the age of search engines where present usage is all that matters.

My being grouchy plays a big part here too.

Reminds me of The Tao of Programming.

https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html

Huge pearls of wisdom.

An oldie but goodie

  > Server is willing  
  > Alas, the file is crafty
  > It cannot be found

EINTR please excuse me

what you were doing stops

now time for my stuff

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