JargonFile/entries/magic.txt

13 lines
645 B
Plaintext
Raw Normal View History

2014-04-26 14:52:28 +00:00
magic
2014-04-26 15:54:15 +00:00
A feature not generally publicized that allows something otherwise
impossible, or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled. 4. n.
The ultimate goal of all engineering development, elegance in the extreme;
from the first corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology
distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. Parodies playing on
these senses of the term abound; some have made their way into serious
documentation, as when a MAGIC directive was described in the Control Card
Reference for GCOS c.1978. For more about hackish magic , see Appendix A.
Compare black magic , wizardly , deep magic , heavy wizardry.