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Code Riffs

Jan 6, 2023

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Once upon a time I was deep into the MD/DC/VA area punk scene, and
believe it or not I played in my share of bands and participated in
my share of punk shows -- both in the crowd and sometimes even on
stage. I look back on this time fondly, but to be honest I can't say
that I ever contributed any song to the universe of music that was
worth listening to. That said, while I can't claim to have been a
talented song-writer, like many aspiring musicians I did discover my
fair share of riffs along the way.

A riff is an interesting little musical phrase that one often comes
across whilst playing around with a guitar in a casual fashion. Very
often riffs form the seeds of what becomes fully-realized songs.
Sometimes these songs are good and sometimes they're not, but in most
cases they are grown like crystals from the original musical fragment
found on the fret-board. For musicians, both practicing and aspiring,
the riff represents a universe of potential out of which any number
of potential works of musical art may spawn.

A few years ago I devised a phrase that I called Code Painting
describing source code that: told a story, was usually not generally
useful, was beautifully abstract, and created in the spirit of
exploration. Unlike a code painting, a code riff is more atomic and
often addresses a singular notion. If I were to characterize the
attributes of a code riff then perhaps the following will suffice:

  * A code riff exists independent to a project narrative
  * A code riff need not be useful
  * A code riff is often "found" during the act of playful
    programming or sprung forth from one's mind
  * A code riff should be beautiful, abstract, and as amusing if
    possible
  * A code riff should invoke Huh? A ha! Ha ha! ^1

In my time I've created my share of code riffs; some that inspired
something more and some still ripe with potential. If you're
interested in some code riffs then a few are available on Github as
Tori Lisp, Evalive, and Unfix and additionally the break macro in
chapter 17 of The Joy of Clojure.

Here's a Clojure code riff from a presentation that I gave many years
ago called "The Magnificent Seven":

(def NIL ((fn [x y] (if (= x y) x)) = (= = =)))

(def CAR (fn [[h & _]] h))
(def CDR  (fn [[_ & t]] t))

(def CONS
  (fn [h t]
    (fn ([] h)
        ([_] t))))

(def FIRST (fn [s] (s)))
(def REST (fn [s] (s NIL)))

(FIRST (CONS 1 (CONS 2 NIL)))
;;=> 1

(FIRST (REST (CONS 1 (CONS 2 NIL)))
;;=> 2

Do you have any code riffs to share?

:F

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 1. Rich Hickey, the creator of Clojure, is a master of code riffs. -

Related posts:

 1. nil, nothing, and notset
 2. Comparing Lines of Code: Scala and Clojure (FUD version)
 3. On Lisp -> Clojure (Chapter 5)
 4. On Lisp -> Clojure (Chapter 4)
 5. On Lisp -> Clojure (chapter 2)

One Comment, Comment or Ping

 1. DJ Adams

    Nice post. I like the idea using the word "riff" here, it fits
    nicely into my brain. I, err, riffed on some similar "pattern"
    ideas in this presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d
    /1xgOHBFNOjg6dFz1qHkSpB9VVjKxgjkugoxo13wAZYU0/edit#slide=id.p and
    in this post https://qmacro.org/blog/posts/2017/02/19/
    the-beauty-of-recursion-and-list-machinery/

    Jan 6th, 2023

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