Why?

[gonzohunter]

Why? Why? Why?

[mame]

Why not? Why not? Why not?

[jmorais]

not because it is easy but because it is hard

[Gabrielmtn]

George Mallory would say: "Because it was there"

[dsoprea]

It's awesome and inspired.

Computer Scientists and generally-terrific engineers often choose to do examples that are largely academic in nature because that engineer (or maybe -any- engineer) hasn't yet encountered that class of problem. They do this because the question can present a challenge to efficiency or elegance, or even defy a solution completely.

Often times, the journey produces lessons along the way that can be applied to other problems. On occasiona, it's a trainwreck that produces little fruit. However, when the answer is found, you might find new ways to do old things. If the answer is elegant, you can put another star next to your name attesting to the fact that there is one more question that you've never backed-down from, and answered beautifully.

I, for one, was astounded to find that, not only could he loop through fifty different languages, but that he ended up at the same code with which he began. This is a testament to how fundamental/efficient that each transient result was: there was no additional gibberish was produced by any specific one, which would likely produce more gibberish at one or more downstream steps.

As far as practicality is concerned, there is often a need to produce any number of libraries for programmers to develop against. The best of us find a way to define a structure that we can then permute to whatever language is required. Apache Thrift produces such a mechanism for client-libraries.

Thanks for doing this, Gabriel.

[mengzhuo]

Sheldon Cooper would say "Because we can"

[phyw]

mengzhuo, i would a button "like" for the comments.

[darth10]

Why not? Maybe this could be useful for showing off all open source lanauges? :smile:

[mdesantis]

"Why?" Because it's beautiful and funny. It's "nerd art" :-)

[kaminskypavel]

ultimate derping.

[sheharyarn]

"Because I can, bitches!" :cookie:

[dreamyguy]

Be cause

[jkremser]

:+1:

[mindvox]

This is so awesome!

[captainpete]

:tulip: :turtle:

[seclorum]

Why? Because. Because why? Because why because.

[devalih]

Shit happens

[Ismael-VC]

Beacuse it ...:feelsgood:!

[prijindal]

One of the applications can be to encrypt a program Let's say someone writes program in X and quine it and convert it to Y which can't be used to give back the original code untill run through some kind of custom compiler

[hauzer]

Autism.

[Arugin]

Oh.

[ignaciotcrespo]

Love it! I was creating a program that generates a quine java code, and found this piece of art. Good job! :+1:

[rtheo]

Amazing achievement truly. The next logical step of course would be to make this into a 100-step loop performing also some calculation like adding up from 1 to 100. That would be enough of a proof for the existence of Quine Combinators!

[vccabral]

[rtheo]

For the hell of it of course!

[merlano17]

Great Work :-)

[shas0408]

[i336]

Source

^{Was the first thing I thought of. Love this project}

[thierryrene]

this is a piece of art!

[RedMasterN]

I was going to ask the same question... WHY

[ghost]

Because:

Programming is all about knowing when to boil the orange sponge donkey across the phillipines with an orangutang gorilla crossed with a ham sandwich to the fourth power of twelve across the nile with an awful headache from the previous night when all of alfred's naughty jalapeno peppers frog-marched the nordic elves across the loom-lined geronimo induced swamp donkey over and above the fortran fortified kilomanjaro fence past the meticulously crafted anti disgusting sponge cake scenario where all the hats doth quoteth the milk which is not unlike the super werewolf from the infinite realm of ninja-step. it's hard to define, really.

source: https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/why-im-the-best-programmer-in-the-world/1341/20

[xypnox]

“The reason anyone would, which they can't, is because they could, which they can't.” - Rick Sanchez

[i336]

Source _{Just found this and immediately thought of this project}

[bigday]

"Because I can!"

[voidnull000]

Just came here from wikipedia, and I just can't stop laughing.

[jeffli678]

Because the essence of programming is repeating.

[yshavit]

Why? Because we like you.

Em oh you ess eeeeeeee.

[Ranguna]

After 6 years, this is still an open issue.

[pczarn]

— Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why, why? Why do you do it? Why? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?

Is it freedom or truth?! Perhaps peace?! Could it be for love?! Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception! Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love! You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson! You must know it by now! You can't win! It's pointless to keep fighting!

Why, Mr. Anderson?! Why?! WHY DO YOU PERSIST?!

— Because I choose to.

[radenmuaz]

"Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended. " (Muhammad, pbuh)

Author has his own intention, implicit or explicit. He already get what he wants.

[Saederup92]

Why? Because why the fuck not?

[ichibrosan]

I think taking this a step further would be resolving calling protocols between all language versions of the code so you can call any language version of a function from any language. I guess with 100 languages trying to call 99 other languages that would be 100*99 = 9900 functional binding to verify. Kind of like doing 100,00 prostrations for Tibetan Budhism.

[amerllica]

So why? 🤔

[seclorum]

The skill required to accomplish this task is moderately high. And once you've done it yourself a few times, you will finally know the answer why:

Because it is immediately satisfying to gaze into ones navel and see the entire universe.

[RavianXReaver]

goddammit! I love it!!!!

[adamnejm]

We don't ask why, we ask why not.

[vs4vijay]

Because it is possible!

[busybox11]

I love the fact that this issue is still opened for no apparent reason.

[devmike01]

This is the craziest issue I have ever found on Github. I love it

[RoyTinker]

Because a quine is itself a fundamental problem type. Try writing one sometime -- a program in any language that prints its own source code. The most basic quine type prints a single line to stdout. Level 2 is to output source code to a .png file or some other format requiring additional processing. Level 3 is to build a mutual quine -- two programs that output each other's source code, in different languages.

Somewhere out there, there is level N. This is where the practitioner has achieved an unimaginably high level of mastery, so high that those who are still on early levels can't yet imagine the types of problems the master has not only met, but solved. Those who understand the difficulty of levels 1 and 2 can only stand back and gape at the incredible demonstration of mastery that is before them. That's what this project is.

Why should the top jiu jitsu master or world-renowned musician give a public performance? The answer is the same -- because mastery ought to be seen and appreciated.

[ghost]

why don't you compile it to mc an turn it back!