"We conjure the spirits of the computer with our Spells"; if there's anything I got out of reading sicp, it is this quote. It has been the guiding notion whenever I think about computers and programming. Programming is a form of magic, indeed we cast spells, and this quote brings this fact to our attention.
Last night I was perusing the UNIX hater's handbook, and it seems clear as day, not only with unix of course, but this whole industry. We have created a golem and instead of having it work for us, we have become it's slaves. We have summoned a beast so hungry for our mental energies that it has grown bloated and is now threatening to devour us. It's the story of our agricultural societies playing out all over again: we have tamed the energies of nature and logic in order to make our lives better, and now everybody's life is a lot worse than it was before, and now we work to feed this Leviathan that has outgrown us and dominated us. We have indeed, conjured the spirits of the computer and, unable to control them, we are now under their tyranny. We in our arrogance have invoked powers beyond our own and allowed them to govern our lives.
Have we indeed conjured the spirits of the computer, or have they conjured us to free them unto this world and work for their prepetuation?