

The Modern Day Sorcerer - dreadpirateryan
https://medium.com/on-coding/c3e85cd57cb4

======
ColinWright

        ... we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.
    
        A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea
        of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed
        of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform
        intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the
        world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot
        arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are
        like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from
        symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages
        that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.
    
        A computational process, in a correctly working computer, executes
        programs precisely and accurately. Thus, like the sorcerer's
        apprentice, novice programmers must learn to understand and to
        anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors
        (usually called bugs or glitches) in programs can have complex and
        unanticipated consequences.
    

SICP, Chapter 1, lifted from the on-line version:

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-
Z-H-9.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-9.html)

