Computers, God and Magik

Jef Ruskin makes connections which interest me.

I had no satori immediately, though I had learned the basics of what programming is about. It did take a few years to realize the implications: by putting words into a non-living machine, it could do your bidding. No cutting, no filing, no screwing nut onto bolt, no oil, no sound, no soldering, no calculations of P = IE or E = IR. Just words, as in the Jewish creation myth where everything was called into being by God's pronouncement, "Let there be...". Now I wanted computers. I had met Merlin [an early computer] at a crucial moment in my life, and a few years later I finally understood what Merlin could do. Put in the right spells, do your incantations (but you must do them exactly right, as the fairy tales warned us) and your wish would come true. It was like magic, it was real, and it was mine to command.

programming teknolligy metaphored as magik. or the command of the g0d. interesting