The Greatest Pun in JavaScript
a day ago
- Shakespeare used puns to play with grammar and meaning, as in 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.'
- Puns can also rely on context outside grammar, like Othello's line 'Put out the light, and then put out the light.'
- The dictionary definition of a pun emphasizes humorous effect, but humor is subjective.
- JavaScript tagged template literals allow functions to process string templates with embedded expressions.
- A tag function named `prompt` can interpret `${...}` and `{ name }` object shorthand to mimic the common `{{ }}` template syntax.
- This coincidental overlap creates a pun: JavaScript sees one thing, the human sees another.
- The author and Justin from Helicone implemented this idea in the Helicone SDK, with the pun as a deliberate feature.
- A pun is defined as one string with two parses, a concept the author applies to grammar models and spatial languages.