this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
619 points (93.3% liked)
Programmer Humor
32570 readers
143 users here now
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
Rules:
- Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
- No NSFW content.
- Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You enchant rocks engraved with runes
Computer programmers are the wizards of the present.
There was a series of books in the '80s where a systems programmer gets pulled through a portal into your typical magical world, good vs evil, etc.
They subsequently look at the magical spells in use and realise they can apply Good Systems Programming Practices™ to them. And thus, with their knowledge of subroutines and parallel processing, they amplify their tiny innate magical abilities up to become a Pretty Good Magician™. So while all the rest of the magicians basically have to construct their spells to execute in a linear fashion, they're making magical subroutines and utility functions and spawning recursive spells without halting checks and generally causing havoc.
It's quite a good allegory for modern times, where a select few build all the magic and the rest just have useful artefacts they use on a day to day basis with no idea how they work
That sounds very interesting, do you remember the name or the author?