Greetings from the Interpreter!!!

[Will Ware]

Steve Lamb (grey at despair.rpglink.com) wrote:
> >import string,time,os
> >print (string.join((lambda x:x[:10]+x[8:])(map(lambda x:
> >string.center("*" * (lambda x: ((x < 24) * (x - 3)) + 3)(x) ,24),
> >range(1,28,2))),os.linesep), "Please Wait...")[time.time()<977612400]

>     Alright, maybe I am missing something but that does nothing at all.

The portion "print string.join(.....os.linesep)" prints a Christmas
tree. The use of parentheses allows you to violate the normal requirement
of whitespace alignment. Voila, obfuscated Python. Obfuscating C or Perl
is no challenge since they're 90% obfuscated already by design.

IIRC there are a few examples of Perl poetry in the Camel book, and one
is particularly good, dark, and Poe-like. Alas my copy is not handy, and
I don't easily find it on the web, which surprises me.
-- 
import string,time,os;print string.join((lambda x:x[:10]+x[8:])(map(
lambda x:string.center("*"*(lambda x:((x<24) ### Seasons Greetings, Will Ware
*(x-3))+3)(x),24),range(1,28, 2))),"\n") ################ wware at world.std.com