On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, Jeff 'japhy' Pinyan wrote: >On Jun 21, Nigel Peck said: > >>Something occured to me the other day and I'm interested to know what >>people's opinions are on this list. When I'm reading the camel or other >>Perl books such as Perl and XML, the majority of the humour is related >>to The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the >>Galaxy. These are my favorite books. Is it
My group teaches Intro to CS/programming classes. At the most-recent end-of-semester group conference, it was mentioned that an understanding of references to THHGttG are down among frosh, and falling. >The Perl source code is peppered (or rather, headed) by a quote from LotR >in each of its source files. > >(For example, locale.c quotes the "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" poem, and mg.c >quotes "I don't want to see no more magic" by Sam, and malloc.c quotes >Gimli saying "The Chamber of Records". Not only are the developers of >Perl smart, they are devastatingly witty.) Sounds like the source is better than some novels I've read lately. >Perhaps this is because programmers are of the sci-fi/fantasy book-reading >ilk, and LotR is perhaps the pinnacle of fantasy. I've read it three >times, and it's probably my favorite book, although sci-fi books like >"Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Ender's Game" are close rivals. While I'm not sure I agree with certain reviews that Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" has surpassed LotR (it's an apples v. oranges thing IMO), I like it just as much -- in a slightly different way. Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" is easily one of my other favorites. And "Dune." D. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
