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David Moles's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom' [1]:

https://dmoles.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/down-and-out.pdf

The final showdown is between object-oriented and functional programs, and the OO programs have a hard time because the functional programs can use the state monad. I am not making this up.

[1] Yes, David Moles's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom', not Cory Doctorow's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom' [2]; Cory Doctorow had a bit of a project of writing stories with titles reused from previous works - for example, his 'True Names' [3] is not Vernor Vinge's 'True Names' [4] [5] - and David Moles thought that what was sauce for the goose may as well be sauce for the gander

[2] https://craphound.com/down/download/

[3] https://craphound.com/news/2008/03/13/true-names-part-01/

[4] http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf [6]

[5] Vernor Vinge's 'True Names' [4] is really worth a read too - a neglected early work of cyberpunk, beats the pants off Neuromancer if you ask me.

[6] Yes, that is a pirate link, but the whole book is about a digital world at the mercy of hackers; you made your bed, Vernor, now you get to lie in it.




I'm going to second 'True Names'. I think Vinge excels at suggesting an idea with just the right amount of vagueness that it makes the imagination run wild filling in the details.


"Down and Out.." sounds as wacky-theoretical as Flatland from a hundred-odd years ago. Great premise!


vinge's "true names" was indeed a glaring omission in that list, especially since some of his other work got a mention




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