XKCD Lament

 

Here's another XKCD by Randall Munroe with a programming theme.  Turns out that Mr. Munroe gave up his love affair with Perl (here and here) some time later when he discovered Python (though he re-visited Perl again at least once more here).

Clicking on the image will make it larger and easier to read. Go to this actual webcomic, hover over the image, and there will be an additional message in the "title-text" . This one says

Some say the world will end in fire; some say in segfaults..

The title on this XKCD post is "With apologies to Robert Frost".  So here's the poem by Frost that Munroe is apologizing for imitating:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Before noticing that title and without knowing enough about poetry I initially thought this might be referencing the final stanza of T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" poem:  This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. (of course without Wikipedia I wouldn't have been able to come up with either that author nor that title.  I could only vaguely remember the "...but a whimper" line).

We're gonna do 2 things now.  First, point out that today is 1-11-11.  That's not going to happen again for another 100 years.  We'll have 11-11-11 in merely 304 days, and we'll make a bigger deal of it then.  And next year there will be 12-12-12, as well as 1-2-12.  However I think 1-11-11 is worth noting for purely trivial numerological reasons.  

Second, we're going to do a series of related XKCDs this week... because they're all related and they're fun.  So get ready for tomorrow's post...here!