I always thought that (after the empty file) the most boring python quine was:

  File "/tmp/quine.py", line 3
    File "/tmp/quine.py", line 3
IndentationError: unexpected indent

Surely the most boring quine is the empty python file?

Languages where you can embed arbitrary files have very boring Quines. :-) Here’s a very boring Go one:

package main

import (
	_ "embed"
	"fmt"
)

//go:embed main.go
var self string

func main() {
	fmt.Println(self)
}

Zig comptime would probably be the best elaborate but boring Quine maker.

According to Douglas Hofstadter, who first introduced the idea of a quine program in “Godel, Escher, Bach”, a quine program reproduces itself using indirect self reference, named after an idea first described by logician W.V.O.Quine. The whole point of the exercise is to demonstrate and illuminate Quine’s idea of self reference.

By this original definition, an empty shell script or python script is not a quine, because there is no self reference.

Here is Hofstadter’s original quine program, written in a made-up language:

DEFINE PROCEDURE "ENIUQ" [TEMPLATE]: PRINT [TEMPLATE, LEFT-BRACKET, QUOTE-MARK, TEMPLATE, QUOTE-MARK, TEMPLATE, QUOTE-MARK, RIGHT-BRACKET, PERIOD].
ENIUQ['DEFINE PROCEDURE "ENIUQ" [TEMPLATE]: PRINT [TEMPLATE, LEFT-BRACKET, QUOTE-MARK, TEMPLATE, QUOTE-MARK, TEMPLATE, QUOTE-MARK, RIGHT-BRACKET, PERIOD].
ENIUQ'].

The “self reference” is achieved by the template string that is passed as the argument to the ENIUQ procedure.

@rtpg’s solution:

t = 't = %r\nprint(t %% t)'
print(t % t)

is similar to Hofstadter’s original, with some differences:

• Instead of defining a function with a template parameter, the template string is stored in a variable t. In both cases, the parameter or variable is referenced twice.
• The Python %r substitution eliminates the verbosity required by the original.

Wow, Spoilers!

I would encourage anyone who hasn’t to take a hand at writing a quine themselves before reading this article. The key insight produced by the quine exercise relates to the concept of “code as data”, not how boring a quine is in a given implementation or the steps you had to take to get there.