# The History of Wumpus

**URL:** <https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-history-of-wumpus/1631>\
**Category:** blog\
**Created:** [March 24, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-history-of-wumpus/1631 "2014-03-24T13:19:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/user_avatar/discourse.codinghorror.com/codinghorror/32/36371_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-history-of-wumpus/1631/1 "2014-03-24T13:19:20Z")

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I sometimes go by the handle "Wumpus" online. It's [part of my personal brand](http://blog.codinghorror.com/your-personal-brand/), just like [Coding Horror is](http://blog.codinghorror.com/on-the-meaning-of-coding-horror/). Why?

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: [http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-history-of-wumpus](http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-history-of-wumpus)

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**Author:** ![Nele\_Abels](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/user_avatar/discourse.codinghorror.com/nele_abels/32/77955_2.png) [@Nele\_Abels](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Nele_Abels)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 9:56am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-history-of-wumpus/1631/3 "2023-01-04T09:56:11Z")

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Hey, nice website. I stumbled here because I am doing some research on Wumpus. Since your site is called “Coding Horror”, I expected that you’d find one or two words about the truly atrocious coding style of Gregory Yob, e.g. his love for spaghetti GOTO jumps and his bad habit of jumping out of FOR-NEXT loops without ever closing them. 😃 I did a Python version of his game and the original source code was nearly unreadable…

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/user_avatar/discourse.codinghorror.com/codinghorror/32/36371_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2025, 11:44pm UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-history-of-wumpus/1631/6 "2025-08-27T23:44:06Z")

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> [@Nele\_Abels](#):
>
> his love for spaghetti `GOTO` jumps and his bad habit of jumping out of `FOR`-`NEXT` loops without ever closing them

This is actually hilarious. 😂

(In partial defense, I will say early fast return is one of my favorite things to put in a function, but that’s assuming you are [programming in a language WITH FUNCTIONS](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-greatest-invention-in-computer-science/), and .. Yob wasn’t 🤣)