Update Dec 31, 2009: where can we find the original article on the web?

Originally posted on Feb 16, 2007

Erudil,

I have just read on my way home the "Codysseus" adventures and have to write to say ¡congratulations!. It's a clever view of the sad life of some (former) programmers now recycled into Techsupport zombies or Management slaves. I know some of them and although they seem to be happy, they long for the days of writing full programs from scratch in a black screen with green letters. They long for the days when they used their brain. Now they have some strange dementia and try to get things done by filling forms and clicking on a colourful screen. They have forgotten how to make things happen automagically by scripting tasks. What a sad life!

I was born in the land of Coboleus in the UNIVAC corner, and was happy while Mainphrame lived. But when he died, after being orphan and alone for a while, I took a UNIX boat and reached Skryptica and have lived very happy there for many years now. Having married with OpenBSD, I have some little kids of no more than 400 MHz each, running very complex tasks for me and my projects.

It's a curious coincidence that I have read this in the last issue of Sys Admin Mag that I will see on my newsstand. It's the end of an era of sending the knowledge coded in atoms instead of in bits. That's good, that will save our planet. But this is also an era of visual culture, and writing code (or anything) is not popular. Why write the strange letters Perlelope dictates when I can easily click on some beautiful icons? We are in a middle-age of knowledge, where so many illiterate programmers need to see drawings on the screen because they are not able to read or write complex text.

When the Age of Enlightment comes, the effects of this collective ignorance will disappear and the future generations will see again the truth: the ten commandments of the programmer written on letters over stone. The triumph of writing over drawing.

Thanks for your quote in making me happy today.