This is a post you do not need to read. There is no why in it. Just art.
With Redis 5, besides the new native data type streams, a new tradition was initiated: The (technologically) use-/reasonless LOLWUT command:
LOLWUT is also going to be a tradition starting from Redis 5. At each new major version of Redis what the command does will change completely, only a set of rules will be fixed:
- It can’t do anything technologically useful.
- It should be fast at doing what it does, so that it is safe to call LOLWUT on production instances.
- The output should be entertaining in some way.
...
LOLWUT should remember ourselves that the work we do, programming, did not start just in order to produce something useful. Initially it was mainly a matter of exploring possibilities. (source)
For Redis 5 LOLWUT implements Schotter ("gravel") by Georg Nees. A Picture of it can be seen here.
As the Victoria and Albert Museum writes:
Along with a number of other practitioners working at this time, Nees was interested in the relationship between order and disorder in picture composition. Here he introduced random variables into the computer program, causing the orderly squares to descend into chaos. (source)
As Antirez puts it:
With the help of a plotter and ALGOL programs, Nees explored writing programs to generate art using chaos (randomness) and repeating patterns. Schotter is remarkable because of the simplicity of the piece and the deep meaning that the observer can find looking at it. Under a surface of total calm and order, deep inside the disorder hides. Or, if you put it upside down it becomes like the sea during a tempest. However the surface may look impetuous, the deep sea remains calm.
For Redis 5 the implementation can be found here.
So is it useless? .. If desperately eager to find a use for it .. take it to identify the version and as a means to tell that it is up and running.
If not .. just regard it as a piece of art inside a database command.