Fun With Programming Languages

Tonight, a Facebook thread got a little out of control after I posted a status update that I was “mentally bankrupt.” It was a long day working on client work – a project that is just about done but past due.

After some commentary by Facebook friends, we got to writing little scripts that would take a random selection from a group of adjectives and adverbs and put similar phrases together randomly.

What came of this exercise was a fun little jaunt into a variety of programming languages.

PHP

<?php
$adverbs = array(
    'mentally',
    'morally',
    'emotionally',
    'socially',
    'psychologically'
);

$adjectives = array(
    'devoid',
    'bankrupt',
    'empty',
    'hollow',
    'vacant',
    'sleeping with fishes',
    'taking a dirt nap',
    'shallow'
);

echo $adverbs[array_rand( $adverbs )] . ' '
    . $adjectives[array_rand( $adjectives )];
?>

Ruby

adj = [ "mentally", "morally",
    "emotionally", "socially",
    "psychologically" ]

adv = [ "devoid","bankrupt",
    "empty", "hollow","vacant",
    "sleeping with fishes",
    "taking a dirt nap","shallow" ]

print adj[rand(adj.length)] + " "
    + adv[rand(adv.length)] + "\n"

Python

import random

def popchoice(seq):
    return seq.pop(random.randrange(len(seq)))

adj = [ 'mentally', 'morally',
    'emotionally', 'socially',
    'psychologically' ]

adv = [ 'devoid','bankrupt','empty',
    'hollow','vacant','sleeping with fishes',
    'taking a dirt nap','shallow' ]

print popchoice(adj) + " "
    + popchoice(adv)

SQL

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE adjectives (
    adjective VARCHAR (30) NOT NULL
    );

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE adverbs (
    adverb VARCHAR (30) NOT NULL
    );
   
INSERT INTO adjectives (adjective)
    VALUES
    ('mentally'),
    ('morally'),
    ('emotionally'),
    ('socially'),
    ('psychologically');
   
INSERT INTO adverbs (adverb)
    VALUES
    ('devoid'),
    ('bankrupt'),
    ('empty'),
    ('hollow'),
    ('vacant'),
    ('sleeping with fishes'),
    ('taking a dirt nap'),
    ('shallow');
   
SELECT CONCAT_WS(
    ' ',
        ( SELECT adjective FROM adjectives ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 ),
        ( SELECT adverb FROM adverbs ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 ) )
    AS RandomStuff;
About Aaron

Aaron Brazell is an Austin, TX-based entrepreneur, a co-founder at WP Engine, WordPress core contributor and author. He wrote the book WordPress Bible and has been publishing on the web since 2000. You can follow him on Twitter, on his personal blog and view his photography at The Aperture Filter.

Comments

  1. David Nick says:

    Funny FB rant I must say :)

    Good work!

  2. Keith Casey says:

    Ha, you need help…

    Besides, it doesn’t count until you release it as an iPhone app. ;)

  3. Zak says:

    This is fun!

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