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Comment by btown | Hacker News Reader

    >>> from __future__ import braces
      File "<stdin>", line 1
    SyntaxError: not a chance

For those interested in how this (hilarious) error text came to be, it's been hardcoded in cpython since 2001!

https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/ad3d3f2f3f19833f59f...

The author, Jeremy Hylton, is now a Principal Engineer at Google working on AI search quality. It's quite remarkable that in 24 years, a single person's career has gone from a tongue-in-cheek memorialization of certain syntax being forbidden, to working on ubiquitous query systems that don't require dedicated syntax at all!

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Reminds me of `break rust;` causing the Rust compiler to emit an internal compiler error. I wonder which other languages have similar easter eggs.

Tcl really became “Enterprise-ready”[0] at this time.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1026619

> The Stardate time format had nothing to do with Sun. I added it to Tcl while working at Scriptics, as an easter egg for the then-upcoming Tcl2K Conference. One of the conference events was a competition to implement a standard-to-stardate conversion utility, using an arcane formula. Only one guy entered the event. He spent a couple hours agonizing over the implementation (as he was looking for a job at Scriptics, he was eager to impress) only to have the easter egg revealed afterwards. Of course he won the competition anyway. And he got the job, too. – Eric Melski

> `break rust;` causing the Rust compiler to emit an internal compiler error

Is this real?

Yes

https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&editio...

> error: internal compiler error: It looks like you're trying to break rust; would you like some ICE?

Lovely, and the word game is just great.

https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&editio...

> error: internal compiler error: It looks like you're trying to break rust; would you like some ICE?

> --> src/main.rs:2:5

> |

> 2 | break rust;

> | ^^^^^^^^^^

> |

> = note: the compiler expectedly panicked. this is a feature.

> = note: we would appreciate a joke overview: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/43162#issuecomment-...

This one in Haskell is coincidental, but used as a joke:

``` import Data.Function

main = do let it = fix error print it ```

On HN, you can add code blocks by indenting with 2 spaces:

  import Data.Function

  main = do
    let it = fix error
    print it

If NLP counts, try xyzzy in gemini.google.com

How is it remarkable? Random people didn't get to add stuff to Python in 2001. It was a niche thing and someone who was contributing to it was likely to be a smart and dedicated person who would naturally have an impactful career ahead of them.

It's a misconception that the informal playful hobby hacking things are their separate world from real professional development.

I think OP is commenting more so on the reversal of the developer’s relationship with rules of syntax than their personal capabilities.

Totally right, my mistake. I guess the order of information as presented in that comment misled me.

No worries. I was working at PythonLabs at the time, so I guess you could say that adding Easter eggs to Python was part of my day job.

Innocent times. Perhaps Hylton could join the "vote of no confidence" motion in order to get justice for Tim Peters:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41314393

And just like that, I'm down the drama rabbit hole.

It's always so cool to see this kind of Easter eggs. So sad that they're not as common as they used to be.

There are all sorts of easter eggs and jokes in Python, for example a joke about blind people that GvR prevented from being reverted:

https://marc.info/?l=python-dev&m=130991276326041&w=2

In 2024 suddenly everyone is grown up and corporate and has never done anything wrong.

> In 2024 suddenly everyone is grown up and corporate and has never done anything wrong.

Trying to be considerate of others, even when they are different from ourselves, is indeed kind and good and does come with maturity. You needn't be corporate or have never done wrong to be considerate.

20 years at google, now thats some F-U money!

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