Burn some books (please)...

[Ron Stephens]

I was busy last night burning printed copies of the MetaClass
Programming articles I found on IBM DeveloperWorks. These tomes,
although short, are packed with more seditious material than I have
seen collected in any other single place. Mr. Mertz and another
sorcerer (and Italian Simon Magus I believe, or was that a pseudonym
for Mr. Martelli?) were twisting logic so pervertedly that they needed
to draw numerous magic charts, with horizontal arrows sideswiping into
vertical arrows, just in order to make their idle imaginings
comprehensible to mere mortals; one could certainly not expect plain
folks to understand their intentions by simply reading the code
itself. I have heard it said that any object not amenable to
introspection is not worth instantiating, so despite my pious
misgivings, I labored late into the night wrapping my mind around the
sorcerers' baubles; every time I tried to turn off the lights and seek
to knit up my raveled sleave of care, I startled myself back to
wakefulness wtih foolish mutterings like "the code is its own reward"
and "before one can commit an object to memory, one must first grasp
the object" or "actual functioning programs are for weenies" when,
finally, in one last gasp for the clean, fresh air of practicality, my
conscience bade me burn the printed words, for better to burn these
scraps than to burn my immortal soul for all eternity. By the
flickering firelight I realized that God has granted us perfect
freedom; the future is yet unwritten, and all things are possible. I
realize now that Italians are all semioticians and Dr. Mertz must have
been so seduced. But what is the distinction between these epiphanies
and my previous predilection for atheism? If I knew the answer to
this, I would be perhaps able to name the particular school of heresy
these authors endorse; but, alas, I know not.

I do know that I thouroughly enjoyed these articles on metaclass
programming, even though I understood only a small portion of their
total contents. I want tot thank the authors and, surely if anyone has
read this far in my drivelings, they would find it infinitely more
profitable to go to IBM Developer Works and study these amazingly well
thought-out works.

RS