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296 points reverseCh | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.284s | source

I recently came across the concept of "useless" programs - pieces of code that serve no practical purpose but are fun, creative, or challenging to write. These could be anything from elaborate ASCII art generators to programs that solve imaginary problems. I'm curious to hear about the most interesting or creative "useless" programs the HN community has written. What was your motivation? What unexpected challenges did you face? Did you learn anything valuable from the experience? Some examples to get the ball rolling: 1. A program that prints the lyrics of "99 Bottles of Beer" in binary. A text-based game where you play as a semicolon trying to find its way to the end of a line of code. A script that translates English text into Shakespearean insults. Share your creations, no matter how quirky or impractical. Let's celebrate the joy of coding for coding's sake!
1. hyperific ◴[] No.41922229[source]
I was interested in recreating the NPC generation system used in the Watchdogs games so I coded up my own in Python. It procedurally generated first and last name, birthdate, city of residence, phone number with area and exchange codes appropriate for city of residence, social security number appropriate for birthdate, occupation and salary appropriate for that job, hobbies, and Myers Briggs personality type. It was a fun exercise but ultimately a useless project.