Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

http://www.sangwine.net/jim/index.php/2011/09/what-you-tattooed-code-on-your-arm/

by robinwarren • 15 years ago

118 88 15 years ago

sangwine.net

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

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

robfitz• 15 years ago

Well. I love it, at least.

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

I do too.

calibraxis• 15 years ago

And you still have space for the y combinator tattoo!

- http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/02/17/y-combinat...

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58027

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

Ha, cool! I'd not seen that one

raganwald5• 15 years ago

It’s meaningful to him and that’s what matters. At no time did he say his goal was to impress us with his coding wizardry, so it’s irrelevant whether I think it’s clever, pedestrian, elegant, or tortured.

Its stated purpose is to motivate him and remind him of what is important to his own happiness. Given this clearly stated requirement, the code as presented, and his statement that it is motivating him, I give declare that this code works as designed.

delinka2• 15 years ago

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.

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

Thanks : )

pchristensen• 15 years ago

You completely won me over with the philosophy behind it. This should be personally meaningful to you for a long time.

I recommend practicing a concise 10 sec explanation because people WILL ask what it means.

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

I think one of the benefits is that I can change the meaning depending on who I am talking to. "Why honey, it means I love you of course!" ;P

user242• 15 years ago

I'm a JS developer too, I decided to read the code before reading the explanation. I said to myself "where the feck does 'i' come from? I guess it must be coming from outside somewhere". Smiled when I read your description:

> The variable i represents input from other people

Very cool :)

But, um, no syntax highlighting?

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

I considered it, but I was afraid people might think I was geeky.

pointyhat2• 15 years ago

Pretty cool. I was going to get a GUID tattooed to my arm :)

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

That's an awesome idea. You should.

icebraining• 15 years ago

An URL could be nice too. Or a QRCode ;)

tel• 15 years ago

I'm not a fan of words in tattoos, so I could never get behind a code tattoo—

But I really like how it uses the interpretation of code as a flow of information. It's how I think about programs, it's both fundamental and often misunderstood, and it makes for a great story.

pivotal• 15 years ago

I think it's pretty great. As a tattooed hacker, I'm glad that someone else wanted a code related tattoo. I've had the idea for a while, but like yourself, when I googled for others and inspiration, came up with very little.

My current plan is to get a portrait of Ada Lovelace. To me, she represents the general concept of "programmer" without being tied to a particular technology.

CGamesPlay• 15 years ago

I wanted to raise two points about your explanation: First, while the function j is a closure, the anonymous function is not; it is simply a higher-order function. Second, i is indeed undefined, but this will not cause a reference error, it will simply push undefined into the array. That's all :)

nailer• 15 years ago

> 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!

MartinCron• 15 years ago

In order to make any great art, there's a risk of spectacular failure. There is no reliable way of achieving greatness. If it's reliable, the best it can be is merely good.

This is exactly why I'm not getting any permanent things done to my body. I wouldn't want something merely good, I would want greatness. In order to go for greatness, I would have to risk spending the rest of my life with some spectacular failure. That's a risk that I'm not willing to take, but I appreciate it when other people do.

Your tattoo? Pretty damn great.

hackinthebochs• 15 years ago

I like the explanation. However, I gotta wonder whether the javascript syntax noise is a bug or a feature :)

wslh• 15 years ago

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

raganwald5• 15 years ago

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

7rurl• 15 years ago

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.

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

Nice! Maybe for the next one.

mhd3• 15 years ago

Get a lambda. Geeks will nod approvingly and you can tell the jocks that it's from 300.

superrad• 15 years ago

http:://www.lambda.org ?

Periodic2• 15 years ago

My plan is Lambda on the left shoulder, Pi on the right. Lambda for programming and right-brain, Pi for math and left-brain. I feel that they are simple, elegant, and have a lot of meaning. My only worry is that they won't age well, but I have no knowledge of tattoos.

I made a deal with myself and my wife that I will get both tattoos once I have made a living working for myself (either a successful startup exit or my consulting taking off).

daeken• 15 years ago

I did this a couple years back -- thus far my only tattoo. It sums up a large portion of my life in one beautiful symbol. http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg129/scaled.php?tn=0&server=...

dkersten• 15 years ago

Or people will think you like the game Half-life that little bit too much.

almostalbert• 15 years ago

Should've just gotten "RangeError" tattooed instead.

SkyMarshal• 15 years ago

(function(){var k=[];return function j(){k.push(i);j();}})()();

Love it, but what that code says to me is Stack Overflow. But I'll reinterpret it to mean Mind = Blown by all the random cool things you learn in this field (infinite data structures in Haskell being the most recent one for me).

PS - I couldn't help running it in the Node REPL:

  > i = 1;

  1

  > (function(){var k=[];return function j(){k.push(i);j();}})()();

  RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded

Lol :) Seriously though, you may be on to something.

yread• 15 years ago

Stack overflow because we are all mortal. Filling of the stack can be fun though

gojomo• 15 years ago

Perhaps he's hoping Skynet will mistakenly eval() its inputs when scanning him into the human work camps.

Periodic2• 15 years ago

Our best defense: code injection attacks.

sesqu• 15 years ago

This bit really bothered me. I would have suggested some ooda-loop construct, instead. That said, it's not my tattoo.

inoop3• 15 years ago

I think this is the JS monkey equivalent of having the Chinese characters for 'strength' and 'wisdom' tattooed on your forearm.

raganwald5• 15 years ago

Calling people monkeys is rather abusive, and this is specifically forbidden by the HN guidelines. Ask yourself: Is your comment just as relevant if you omit that one word? If so, consider editing it out.

jackpirate2• 15 years ago

Calling people monkeys is rather abusive

I disagree. "Code monkeys" is a common term used for programmers, and it is not at all derogatory. (If anything, I think it implies a certain level of respect.) "JS monkeys" is simply a derivative form of code monkeys.

donw2• 15 years ago

Abusive and insulting speech is all about tone -- the intent of the speaker.

In this case, I don't see anything insulting about the phrase 'JS monkey'. It's similar to the idiom 'code monkey', and I'd certainly use the term to refer to myself in casual conversation. E.g., 'Today I'm a Javascript monkey.'

We'd be in total agreement if the term was obviously insulting, but I don't see any evidence of that. Moreover, the original comment would be less interesting without the, um, moniker.

inoop3• 15 years ago

I figured most people would be familiar with the term 'code monkey'.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=code+monkey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYodWEKCuGg&feature=relat...

asclepiades2• 15 years ago

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/ ].

camtarn• 15 years ago

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 ;)

inoop3• 15 years ago

    mov ax,13h
    int 10h

asclepiades2• 15 years ago

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! ;)

lloeki• 15 years ago

Interestingly enough Hanzi Smatter focuses on mistakes with Kanji or Chinese, but I guarantee that those french translations of meals are equally hilarious.

TamDenholm• 15 years ago

One point i'd like to make. I think its great that people get tattoos that mean something to them, and i'd totally get a code tattoo too, but i dont believe tattoos HAVE to mean something to get them. All the tattoos i have dont have any meaning behind them other than "just because i like it" and while a deep emotional connection with a tattoo is great, dont talk yourself out of getting a tattoo if theres no meaning behind it, if the only reason is, "because you like it", thats a great reason too.

_corbett• 15 years ago

my tattoo means something to me (a stylized hydrogen atom; I'm a physicist) but it also has multiple meanings and is first and foremost an aesthetic decision.

davedx• 15 years ago

Same here! I uhm'd and ah'd for ages before I finally got mine. It's a pretty standard tribal design on my left upper arm, and I still really like the way it looks :) No special meaning, though people ask if it has a meaning whenever they first see it.

erikpukinskis• 15 years ago

It's kind of sad, I thought the y combinator was beautiful until it became a brand name.

danielhfrank• 15 years ago

upvote x10. The y combinator is exactly the sort of thing I would have been happy to have written on my body, had it not turned into an investor buzzword

mhd3• 15 years ago

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, being German I'm not allowed to mention "identification" and "tattoo" in the same sentence, but my knowledge of COBOL divisons is lacking.

ataggart• 15 years ago

Thus if one is to tattoo code, it should be in lisp.

mhd3• 15 years ago

APL is cheaper.

eps• 15 years ago

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?! :)

JimSangwine9• 15 years ago

"what an odd typography choice. Why not a monospaced typeface?!"

Because my arm was not long enough - Arial Narrow was the only clear one I could find that would fit : )

galactus• 15 years ago

I don't know... I like the message, but a programming language seems to be the wrong medium to convey it.

I would at least have used a procedure call to represent input from people, instead of an unbound variable :P

grandalf2• 15 years ago

Why js vs λ notation?

grandalf2• 15 years ago

In retrospect I realized this question is deeper than I thought. Maybe js is the new lambda notation.

dmcg2• 15 years ago

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.

stuffihavemade• 15 years ago

But what happens when QR codes aren't around in 20 years? You need another level of indirection!

dmcg2• 15 years ago

Yeah, the real solution is OLED tats.

donw2• 15 years ago

Just don't host it on EC2: "Our love is like this webserver... vanished from time and space thanks to a disk failure."

commanda• 15 years ago

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.left || 
           r2.top > r1.bottom ||
           r2.bottom < r1.top);
  }

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.

jbm• 15 years ago

> 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

This reminds me a lot of how I felt this past weekend while looking at old blog posts of mine. :)

meson2k• 15 years ago

"i" undeclared

davesims• 15 years ago

Nice, and a very cool explanation. But I find it a bit ironic that a snipit of code meant to be a form of self-identification has the output: "i is not defined".

http://jsconsole.com/?%28function%28%29{var%20k%3D[]%3Bretur...

Create• 15 years ago

http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/DoesVisualStudioRotTheMind...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Charles_petzol...

janto• 15 years ago

I'd consider the typical poetic fork bomb :(){ :|:& };: or maybe $0 & $0 &

dave1010uk• 15 years ago

Knowledge (k) may increase but there appears to be no way to access or share it.

techiferous• 15 years ago

> The obvious choice of language was JavaScript.

I hate to be a party pooper, but the only reason JavaScript is so popular is because it has a monopoly on browser scripting. Because (1) the language has significant design flaws and (2) heavy client-side programming is becoming very popular, it's inevitable that it will be replaced by better languages (plural) and 5-10 years from now JavaScript will be seen as a cumbersome, clunky, unfashionable old language.

So you will regret having the tattoo.

But on a positive note, in 15-25 years, JavaScript may be seen as "hip" and "retro", kind of like 8-bit graphics now.

So you will regret having the tattoo removed. :)

prawn• 15 years ago

I've always liked the idea of either the "map" from the Pioneer plaque (depicting the location of our sun by use of pulsars identified by their frequencies):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Pio...

Or components of the Arecibo message:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

caller9• 15 years ago

I thought about getting this as a tattoo: ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++<<-]>+.>+..++++++.

Then I thought better of it.

moomin• 15 years ago

It should, of course, have read

    do do -> k=[];j = -> k.push i; do j

Great developer tattoo, even better explanation.

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