So you've decided to start a weblog and have a really clever idea for titling it based on a snippet of code you find particularly novel. Rad!

It's been done before, though; a lot, in fact. And there's a couple of things you should consider before making a decision with such long term implications. Let's take a look at the ins and outs of clever weblog titles and get a feel for what you'll be up against...

Jamis Buck:

the { buckblogs :here }
assorted_ramblings.by JamisBuck

Both lines are valid Ruby syntax that express no useful semantic. Your clever idea should be more clever.

Charles Miller's The Fish Bowl

tail -f /dev/mind > blog

This tagline insinuates that Charles's brain is accessible via a special device file (enabled by a kernel module, presumably). tail(1) reads from the end of the device, writing what it finds to stdout. With the -f argument, it runs until interrupted and "follows" the file, writing anything new as it becomes available. Here, though, stdout is being redirected to a file named "blog" in the current working directory. We can speculate that "blog" is actually a fifo node, the read side of which is connected to netcat(1) and is being carted up to pastiche.org where it's piped through a series of sed(1) filters that convert Charles's raw thoughts into standard SQL99 INSERT statements.

If your clever title is hardcore-Unix-hacker type clever, give up now.

Jim Weirich:

{ | one, step, back | }

Your clever title should not ignore established coding conventions (spaces around block parameters).

brightredglow.com:

def euler(x); cos(x) + i*sin(x); end

If the cleverness of your title relies on pure mathematical beauty, give up now. It is simply not possible to come up with anything better than Euler's formula. Seriously.

Josh Susser:

has_many :through

Your clever title should not be semantically misleading. Josh's title declares that the containing model has a 1:N relationship with a model whose plural form is "Through". It is more likely that the intended semantic was to declare that the containing model had a 1:N relationship with some other model through some other model. For instance, ...

Pratik Naik:

has_many :bugs, :through => :rails

Admitting the shortcomings of your programming environment in your clever weblog title is highly encouraged.

Fabio Akita:

%w(Akita On Rails) * 2.0

This is valid Ruby code, somehow. The first part creates a three element array (["Akita", "On", "Rails"]). Multiplying this by 2.0 yields ["Akita", "On", "Rails", "Akita", "On", "Rails"]. If your clever weblog title isn't feeling clever enough, multiple by the current version of the web.

Bob Ippolito:

from __future__ import *

This might be my favorite use of code in a weblog title. Python has a special __future__ module that acts as a sort of staging area for experimental language features that are to be introduced in developing versions of Python. You can get those features in current/stable versions by importing them explicitly by name. Importing everything from __future__ is both technically impossible (it raises a SyntaxError) and insanely cool.

If your clever weblog title can top Bob's, you have my official blessing.