WordPress's famous motto; "Code is poetry". I don't know how romantic it sounds, but it's definitely not meant to sound romantic. Like Mawlana, we first looked at the phrase, now let's look at who said this phrase. Who is this WordPress?

WordPress is one of the most used blogging systems in the world, open source and distributed free of charge. Using WordPress, you can set up your own server in a short time, publish your site and start adding content to your site, ie blogging.

A quarter of every site on the internet is WordPress. Every site ... This company is a giant company that employs nearly two hundred employees from their homes and does not even have an office. Then they say that "code is poetry". Why is that?

What Is a Poem?

In the sentence Code is poetry, the word code describes itself through poetry. What is poetry? I'm aware that this phrasing related more to the American poetry rather than Turkish poetry, which is quiet different and may be understood differently in Turkey. Nevertheless, is there not another concept that we can define poetry through, such as a common definition of what we call poetry, or the study of defining the code word through poetry in the sentence code is poetry? What is it like a poem? The poem is probably closer to silent than to speak, to feel more than to tell, to describe rather than to show. It's like letting the word go. A situation where words abandon their daily, ordinary meanings or where meanings tear these words off like a shirt. The poem is actually much more than what is written. The written part is a valuable essence obtained by various distillation processes. It is an inspiration that makes you look at the cold-pressed olive oil and take a journey that makes you see that olive, the tree, the soil and the people. Less words, more images.

How Is Code Similar to Poetry?

How does this ancient tradition called poetry, which has found its place in every culture, without exception, resemble code; that is, words written line by line on screens resembling a notebook application and parentheses, quotes or a lot of punctuation marks and symbols that fill between these words?

Talking Less

Poetry is about talking less and telling a lot. I'm not saying good poems are short. I always say that poetry is more than itself. In software, this criterion is relatively the same. More code means more breakdown and less flexibility. You should know the point you want to reach and thoroughly investigate the shortest path to here.

Secret Logic

People say nonsense, good poems never do. When it comes to coding, you don't have the luxury of lollygagging. Every space is a possibility. First of all, the target and path should be drawn, and each step should be passed through logical filters. Neither in poetry nor in coding, the caravan is not flattened on the road.

Seeing the Big Picture

Reaching the purest and most distilled state of something is about coming from the whole. You cannot distill what you do not know. The destination you want to reach and the route you want to go should be clear so that you can distill this adventure. Good poetry and good coding come from the hands of people who can see the whole and summarize the whole with a precision that does not miss even the small details. As one poet said, "Good poetry is not written, it is erased". Good poetry is where you reach when you erase unnecessary parts of a poem.

Knowing and Building

If you're reading this article, you must know English. But some of you read poetry, fewer of us write poetry, even less of us write good poetry. Knowing English or any other language is not enough to write good poetry. The same goes for coding. Knowing all coding languages ​​is not a sufficient hardware for coding. Codes are just tools that allow you to go to the destination you want to reach. Knowing English is not enough for you to create poetry, and knowing codes is not enough to set up an algorithm. The two are really close concepts. They're both about seeing the whole and being able to create a logical, simple but comprehensive summary.