The bar for entry into CodeSOD is pretty straight forward: professionally-developed code that elicits that certain What The— reaction. Though there have been a few exceptions over the years, generally speaking, student code, hobbyist code, and amateur code need not apply. That said, I'd like to try something a little different today. Today's example is not technically professionally-developed, it's a Stupid Coding Trick.

"So I was bored at work one day," Graeme Job explains, "and wondered, what's the most useless thing I could do with my time without actually doing anything. Then it hit me. I could use T-SQL to generate... Mandelbrot."

Graeme continued, "Following is a single T-SQL SELECT statement that generates a text-representation of a Mandelbrot Set. The results are best viewed in text-mode."

-- AUTHOR: GRAEME JOB -- CREATED: 12-OCT-2008 -- BECAUSE: SINGLE SQL COMMAND < 50 LINES. JUST BECAUSE. WITH XGEN ( X , IX ) AS ( -- X DIM GENERATOR SELECT CAST (- 2.2 AS FLOAT ) AS X , 0 AS IX UNION ALL SELECT CAST ( X + 0.031 AS FLOAT ) AS X , IX + 1 AS IX FROM XGEN WHERE IX < 100 ), YGEN ( Y , IY ) AS ( -- Y DIM GENERATOR SELECT CAST (- 1.5 AS FLOAT ) AS Y , 0 AS IY UNION ALL SELECT CAST ( Y + 0.031 AS FLOAT ) AS Y , IY + 1 AS IY FROM YGEN WHERE IY < 100 ), Z ( IX , IY , CX , CY , X , Y , I ) AS ( -- Z POINT ITERATOR SELECT IX , IY , X , Y , X , Y , 0 FROM XGEN , YGEN UNION ALL SELECT IX , IY , CX , CY , X * X - Y * Y + CX AS X , Y * X * 2 + CY , I + 1 FROM Z WHERE X * X + Y * Y < 16 AND I < 100 ) SELECT REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( ( X0 + X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 + X5 + X6 + X7 + X8 + X9 + X10 + X11 + X12 + X13 + X14 + X15 + X16 + X17 + X18 + X19 + X20 + X21 + X22 + X23 + X24 + X25 + X26 + X27 + X28 + X29 + X30 + X31 + X32 + X33 + X34 + X35 + X36 + X37 + X38 + X39 + X40 + X41 + X42 + X43 + X44 + X45 + X46 + X47 + X48 + X49 + X50 + X51 + X52 + X53 + X54 + X55 + X56 + X57 + X58 + X59 + X60 + X61 + X62 + X63 + X64 + X65 + X66 + X67 + X68 + X69 + X70 + X71 + X72 + X73 + X74 + X75 + X76 + X77 + X78 + X79 + X80 + X81 + X82 + X83 + X84 + X85 + X86 + X87 + X88 + X89 + X90 + X91 + X92 + X93 + X94 + X95 + X96 + X97 + X98 + X99 ), 'A' , ' ' ), 'B' , '.' ), 'C' , ',' ), 'D' , ',' ), 'E' , ',' ), 'F' , '-' ), 'G' , '-' ), 'H' , '-' ), 'I' , '-' ), 'J' , '-' ), 'K' , '+' ), 'L' , '+' ), 'M' , '+' ), 'N' , '+' ), 'O' , '%' ), 'P' , '%' ), 'Q' , '%' ), 'R' , '%' ), 'S' , '@' ), 'T' , '@' ), 'U' , '@' ), 'V' , '@' ), 'W' , '#' ), 'X' , '#' ), 'Y' , '#' ), 'Z' , ' ' ) FROM ( SELECT 'X' + CAST ( IX AS VARCHAR ) AS IX , IY , SUBSTRING ( 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ' , ISNULL ( NULLIF ( I , 0 ), 1 ), 1 ) AS I FROM Z ) ZT PIVOT ( MAX ( I ) FOR IX IN ( X0 , X1 , X2 , X3 , X4 , X5 , X6 , X7 , X8 , X9 , X10 , X11 , X12 , X13 , X14 , X15 , X16 , X17 , X18 , X19 , X20 , X21 , X22 , X23 , X24 , X25 , X26 , X27 , X28 , X29 , X30 , X31 , X32 , X33 , X34 , X35 , X36 , X37 , X38 , X39 , X40 , X41 , X42 , X43 , X44 , X45 , X46 , X47 , X48 , X49 , X50 , X51 , X52 , X53 , X54 , X55 , X56 , X57 , X58 , X59 , X60 , X61 , X62 , X63 , X64 , X65 , X66 , X67 , X68 , X69 , X70 , X71 , X72 , X73 , X74 , X75 , X76 , X77 , X78 , X79 , X80 , X81 , X82 , X83 , X84 , X85 , X86 , X87 , X88 , X89 , X90 , X91 , X92 , X93 , X94 , X95 , X96 , X97 , X98 , X99 ) ) AS PZT

As for the aforementioned results, I've taken the liberty of pasting them into notepad and snapping a screenshot.

Have any of your own stupid coding tricks to share? Then send 'em on in. The goal of a stupid coding trick isn't obfuscation per se... just, well, stupid awesomeness. Kinda like a quine, except even more useless.