Dulac's Fairy Tale Illustrations in Full Color

I think itБЂ™s not an accident that we often use the imagery of magic to describe programming. We speak of computing wizards and we think of things happening by magic or automagically. And I think thatБЂ™s because being able to get a machine to do what you want is the closest thing weБЂ™ve got in technology to adolescent wish-fulfillment. And if you look at the fairy tales, people want to be able to just think in their minds what they want, wave their hands, and it happens. And of course the fairy tales are full of cautionary tales where you forgot to cover the edge case and then something bad happens. Seibel:Fantasia and the perils of recursion, for instance. Steele:Fantasia and recursion, yes. Or, БЂњI wish I was the richest man in the countryБЂ«БЂ”well, that makes everybody else extremely poor and youБЂ™re the same as you were before. That kind of thing happens in fairy tales because people forget that thereБЂ™s more than one way to do something. And if you just think about your main wish and donБЂ™t think about the details, that leaves a lot not tied down ...»