And now, for some off-topic:
"If programming languages were religions"
(Inspired by "If programming languages were cars")
C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.
Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake.
PHP would be Cafeteria Christianity - Fights with Java for the web market. It draws a few concepts from C and Java, but only those that it really likes. Maybe it's not as coherent as other languages, but at least it leaves you with much more freedom and ostensibly keeps the core idea of the whole thing. Also, the whole concept of "goto hell" was abandoned.
C++ would be Islam - It takes C and not only keeps all its laws, but adds a very complex new set of laws on top of it. It's so versatile that it can be used to be the foundation of anything, from great atrocities to beautiful works of art. Its followers are convinced that it is the ultimate universal language, and may be angered by those who disagree. Also, if you insult it or its founder, you'll probably be threatened with death by more radical followers.
C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it'd probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it.
Lisp would be Zen Buddhism - There is no syntax, there is no centralization of dogma, there are no deities to worship. The entire universe is there at your reach - if only you are enlightened enough to grasp it. Some say that it's not a language at all; others say that it's the only language that makes sense.
Haskell would be Taoism - It is so different from other languages that many people don't understand how can anyone use it to produce anything useful. Its followers believe that it's the true path to wisdom, but that wisdom is beyond the grasp of most mortals.
Erlang would be Hinduism - It's another strange language that doesn't look like it could be used for anything, but unlike most other modern languages, it's built around the concept of multiple simultaneous deities.
Perl would be Voodoo - An incomprehensible series of arcane incantations that involve the blood of goats and permanently corrupt your soul. Often used when your boss requires you to do an urgent task at 21:00 on friday night.
Lua would be Wicca - A pantheistic language that can easily be adapted for different cultures and locations. Its code is very liberal, and allows for the use of techniques that might be described as magical by those used to more traditional languages. It has a strong connection to the moon.
Ruby would be Neo-Paganism - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone.
Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.
COBOL would be Ancient Paganism - There was once a time when it ruled over a vast region and was important, but nowadays it's almost dead, for the good of us all. Although many were scarred by the rituals demanded by its deities, there are some who insist on keeping it alive even today.
APL would be Scientology - There are many people who claim to follow it, but you've always suspected that it's a huge and elaborate prank that got out of control.
LOLCODE would be Pastafarianism - An esoteric, Internet-born belief that nobody really takes seriously, despite all the efforts to develop and spread it.
Visual Basic would be Satanism - Except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist...
Thanks to jfs and other people on #aegisub for the suggestions. Keep in mind, this list is a joke, and is not meant to offend anyone. Also, if you're a Muslim, please don't kill me. ;)
Note: I wrote a follow-up to this article, regarding the overwhelming reaction that it received.
Note 2: This article is also hosted at my official blog here.
Comments closed as of April 2011. This post has started attracting more spam than useful comments, so commenting has been closed now. Thank you for the many responses.
OH MY GOD YOU INSULTED MY GOD DIE OK
ReplyDeleteim getting my WHOLE "extremist" family to hunt you down and sacrifice you to allah
ReplyDeleteAlso this list is already plenty long, we don't need any more suggestions :3
ReplyDeleteAt least don't expect the main list to be expanded.
Aw, why not? If it's funny, I don't see the harm in adding new ones. :)
ReplyDeleteI lol'd a bit at Perl.
ReplyDeleteI'm amused
ReplyDeletethen asm coders would be the gods
ReplyDeletemeh.
zer0toinfty.wordpress.com
Blasphemy! Burn him at the stake! ;)
ReplyDeleteOf course, one serious note is that if you insult ANYTHING (not just Islam) it's FANS will beat the crap out of you. Actually a FAN (fanatic) is an unreasonable person who beats the crap out of others. For example, I though I was a Harry Potter fan, until I was beaten and sent to hospital by Harry Potter fans.
Malbolge is a religion by itself and does not require any additional information.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!!!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've done a little Python in a TurboGears environment and it just didn't make sense to me. Prolly haven't used it enough to know if it's any easier than perl or not. Great list! Me laffy.
ReplyDeleteI would had thought one of the higher levels of Assembly would been Judaism since it is older, but now I think about it, C makes more sense since a lot of languages are based off of C and I suppose the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions are based on Abraham so I suppose I am not adding anything substance to this post.
ReplyDeleteOkay, mod me down (oops wrong forum)
This post made my day. The perl bit has soda all over my keyboard.
ReplyDeleteAfter 4 years of nothing but Perl programming, I've collected my share of Voodoo dolls.
ReplyDeleteI had to chuckle at the Haskell bit too. I've written a few things in Haskell, and it bothers me that anyone can write large projects in this language.
What about Prolog?
ReplyDeleteSurely that'd be athiesm (yeah - I know, not technically a religion, but you know what I mean) a completely rationalistic take on the programming universe by following scientific deduction.
I throw my shoes.
ReplyDeleteI think INTERCAL would be Discordianism.
ReplyDelete>>ntoll
ReplyDeleteHey, you ripped my idea!
And yes, Prolog is atheism: your brain works, you don't care nobody, you are a machine, so in conclusion, you don't need to believe in nobody.
I'd say Lisp is Buddhism -- a whole family of religions, of which Zen is one. Scheme is probably Zen. :-)
ReplyDeleteVery funny and, in some ways at least, uncannily and eerily accurate. I'm a PHP/Python guy these days and found those descriptions sort of horoscope-like. Nice job. Linking to it from my blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be Smalltalk??
ReplyDeleteFact check: you can convert to Judaism (and I did).
ReplyDeletebeautiful...with this I even came to know more about other religions :)
ReplyDeleteBloody Python propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThat was awesome. I just wish Actionscript was on the list.
ReplyDeleteThere's a BIG and hilarious problem with this analogy: Bill Gates would be Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Satan, right? Or, perhaps some would argue that it was Bill's followers who created C++, C#, and Visual Basic. That conversation would naturally fork into the point that both followers as well as disbelievers of Bill were simply reacting to Bill's universal actions, which would effectively promote him to God in the analogy. But, that would require swapping Java and Visual Basic as Satanism and Fundamentalist Christianity respectively, which would also require PHP to be re-mapped to another religion.
ReplyDeleteNever-the-less... not bad humor for the day. :)
My mistake... Bjarne Stroustrup would be Muhammad, but he listened to Bill Gates among many others as key influential people in developing his "religion" (in the analogy).
ReplyDeleteI think prolog would be quakerism, an old religion with a small number of devout followers whose faith most everybody seem to find admirable, but nobody ever was able to apply succesfully.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you're a Muslim, please don't kill me.
ReplyDeletehahahaha, sigh...
You forgot to mention that, like the Mormon temples, the corporation in control of C# does everything it can to ensure that its followers do not deviate from the official but expensive development environment as that would diminish revenues.
ReplyDeleteSabotage of other languages or competing movements is fair game.
Hehe. What about SML/OCaml? Might be Kabbalah, or something^ω^
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you're a Muslim, please don't kill me. ;)
ReplyDeleteLOL. It was a fun read.
Wow dude that is some pretty crazy stuff.
ReplyDeletejess
www.online-privacy.se.tc
no jainism ? :(
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain
Fantastic! I LMAO at Perl.
ReplyDeleteSmalltalk is Jesus. Objective-C is Orthodox Christianity.
ReplyDeleteAnd like Mormons we are fanatics so you'd better get your facts straight ;-) And to confirm your prejudice i'll make supply you with a tiny list :-D
ReplyDelete- The C# language adherence to a official ecma standard (http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-334.htm)
- Microsoft develops/support other IDE tools/plugins, at the moment a plugin for Eclipce to develop silverlight applications (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx and http://www.eclipse4sl.org/)
- There are alternatives to Visual Studio. Just to name a few:
* http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
* http://monodevelop.com/Main_Page
- Not C# but what the hack, the evil Microsoft recently released a new version of IronPython (http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython/Wiki/View.aspx?title=v2.0.0%20Release%20Notes&referringTitle=Home) that supports CPython 2.5
Smalltalk is the ancient Egyptian religion. The Initiated know it already had all the important concepts working long ago and most popular modern languages are incomplete subsets of it that obsess over artificial restrictions of their own creation while entirely missing the reason their code exists in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAnd the heart of your code will be judged against the Feather of Truth before it can join the message passing afterlife.
- MrX_TLO
Machine Language is Animism - the belief that ultimately everything is made out of bits and on some level can be thought of as an executable.
ReplyDeleteAssembly Language is Shamanism - the idea that we can use symbols to more easily communicate with the binary world. Also that we can change the visible world by journying into the hidden realm by the use of debuggers.
- MrX_TLO
Muslim here, got a kick out of it.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Fortran.
ReplyDeleteFortran has been around since before COBOL. It has evolved over time (though most people don't realize it), borrowing ideas from Pascal, C, Ada, C++, etc. The Fortran 2008 standard is just about to be released. It is the most highly efficient language for intensive numerical kernels on supercomputers. And yet, most people have abandoned it for other, more coherent, less arcane languages with smaller sets of rules.
Therefore Fortran is the Greco-Roman pantheon.
VB should be ridiculed more.
ReplyDeleteScientology is not a religion, guys. let's not forget that.
ReplyDeleteForth would be Scientology I am guessing. It is a write only language supported by a small group of fanatics. Forth was explicitly designed to control things (like telescopes, robots, and satellites) and Scientology was designed to control people.
ReplyDeleteJust my best guess.
I studied Haskell at college. I was so tired of answer the question "What the hell is Haskell" that I just took off of my CV :-)
ReplyDeletefunny - I am a humanist Jew, writing mostly in C and python!
ReplyDeleteit's so obvious you just work with Python...
ReplyDeleteanyway, you forgot SQL
Hah! Humanism isn't a religion! Fail!
ReplyDeleteI kid, this list is great. Thanks for a good read:)
Humanism can be a religion - it's SECULAR humanism that isn't one.
ReplyDeletemakj -- SQL might be a language, but it's not a *programming* language. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteCurious about the oldies, like Basic and Fortran.
Whoever said Forth relates to Scientology should hang his head in total FAIL. Forth, like Lisp, is a Buddhist language. Lisp, contrary to popular belief, DOES have syntax -- they're called parentheses. They're needed because Lisp's lists can be variable length. Forth has even less syntax than Lisp, because its procedures are all of fixed arity.
ReplyDeleteIn this sense, Forth is even more Zen than Scheme. No automatic memory management, no malloc-equivalent (until ANSI came along, that is), no syntax whatsoever, no filesystem (traditional Forth uses DASDs directly), etc.
In fact, there are some publications on the net that actually draw parallels between zen and Forth!!
If PHP is Cafeteria Christianity then Drupal is sitting at the cool table ;)
ReplyDeleteDelphi developer here. Just wanted to mention that you forgot Pascal. Pascal was originally developed as a teaching language. It started out being considered by many people to be woefully inadequate for "serious" programming, and yet the most advanced operating system of its day (Mac OS classic, pre-PowerPC) was written in pascal.
ReplyDeleteThe language has matured quite a bit since then, and been reborn as Object Pascal (aka Delphi,) which is easily the most productive way to write native-code applications for Windows.
Unfortunately, it's been eclipsed in recent years due to a combination of poor management by Borland and Microsoft ripping it off to create the .NET framework. (They brain-drained away the guy who created Delphi and had him make a C-based managed-code version. Just about all those flashy .NET features people are getting excited about are things we followers of the True Way have been able to do for years, without the performance overhead of a managed framework.)
So, what religion matches?
I didn't FORGET Pascal, it's just that I couldn't find anything that really matched the "designed for teaching" concept.
ReplyDeleteSame goes for Smalltalk.
ADA would be Atheism.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few projects, you will know there is no God
This is a gross insult to programming languages. Especially c++. C++ does not advocate raping children, massacring, stealing, religious genocides or any of those things the "religion of peace" advocates. Nor is Bjarne anywhere near the monster the paedophile prophet was (piss be upon him).
ReplyDeleteHave some respect man.
What about JavaScript?
ReplyDeleteSo, please don't kill you if you're Muslim, but anyone else is free to do so? Awesome!
ReplyDeleteI vote that Atheism is HTML. It's not really even a language, but many people think it is. It's the absence of any code whatsoever. Plus, even though there are "suggestions" about what rules to follow, nobody really follows them. CENTER is a deprecated tag? Meh. Morals are relative, code however you feel like, the browsers will still work.
It is possible to convert to reform or conservative judaism.
ReplyDeleteUhm btw... Aegisub (the program this blog is really about) is implemented in C++, depending on a few C libraries too. The only Python code we have in the project is small handful of support scripts for the build, nothing else.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes we kinda like Python, its only problem is that it's rather embedding-hostile =)
Most of the major languages "missing" from the list are because we really couldn't find anything to liken them to.
I should probably point out that C++ is my favorite language and that I'm an atheist... Lots of people seem to think that I'm a Python fanboy due its description, but I tried to be unbiased while writing everything.
ReplyDeleteI bet the author is a Jew. Its a shame that he just used languages to show his biasness by defending Judaism and insulting Islam. But hey if you insult Judaism you are anti-Semitic and if you insult Islam, you are cool and its freedom of expression. Please don’t pollute tech world like what you have done with financial sectors via Federal Reserves.
ReplyDeleteWhat does that make Pascal?
ReplyDeleteI believe Fortran deserves mention, having built Stonehenge.
ReplyDeleteAs a Quaker, I can assure you that the only pure language is binary. None of these icons and rituals. Just pure programming, and with not ministers preaching at you. You program from the light within you.
Nice comparison. I love python.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did not like the way you talked about Islam. I know that you see many terrible actions done by Muslims which has nothing to do with Islam. Great software made by great developers whatever the language you use ;). Bear in mind that we make the current free discussion with the available technology we made away from the religions mind set.
@anon saying that author must have been a Jew
ReplyDeleteNope, as I've just just above your comment, I'm an atheist, and I don't (afaik) have jewish descent.
@aboSamoor
I'm NOT saying that Islam does truly preach violence - but there are many people who truly BELIEVE that their acts of violence ARE in accordance to the will of God as revealed by the Qur'an. Of course, the same can be said of Judaism, Christianity and other religions, but Islam has been more evident lately.
I posted the question on StackOverflow and got back some answers very quickly:
ReplyDelete1. Delphi is obviously Catholic. We enjoy lots of structure, and the VCL/RTL protects us from making most windows calls directly.
2. Delphi would be Catholicism. It was founded (created) by somebody who is said to have super-human (very good technical) abilities. It grew to a point where it had a lot of power and followers. Many things have changed since Delphi was founded and, somehow, it has managed to evolve and grow (Delphi for .NET), however, in the process, it has lost the consistency that characterized its earlier flavors. Due to gross mistakes in its leadership (yeah, Borland), Delphi has lost ground to newer religions like C#, dynamic laguages and, of course, the Web; but it still manages to survive and grow within its possibilities.
Notes:
* The main difference would be that, while Jesus was killed, Hejlsberg has defected to Microsoft.
* I was baptized in this faith, but some years ago, after a lot of meditation, I had a revelation and converted to C++.
@Anonymous: It's pretty irreverent of all religions, get over yourself. The only one it speaks positively about is Python... so I guess if you are going to call bias it would be that.
ReplyDeleteRegarding HTML == Atheism.. Rather XML = Atheism, and HTML == Agnosticism. HTML doesn't quite know what it is, but it's something to do with programming and data, and it might have a little Javascript embedded in it just to make things work.
ReplyDeleteSQL would be prayer... Used by all religions, in slightly different ways, in order to query God (the database).
@amz
ReplyDeleteHave you ever studied Quran or just went like the stuff repeated on Faux/CNN or other main stain media? Its easy to do that but very difficult to point a single phrase from Quran which says kill any innocent non-muslim? It gives me great grief when guys like you ( having mindset of reddit n digg) still follow that trash thrown at them several times a day. Islam has been more evident lately, I agree, but after 9/11. Yet a logical mind is not ready to accept 9/11, the way its depicted and how crusade was started. At least if you can get time, study history of crusades and how muslim conqueror behaved ( never killed innocents even though non-muslims ). Islam has never been offensive, it has always been defensive and every one has the right of defence even in modern democratic world.
Hmm. Maybe Tcl (the universal glue language) would be Ba'hai?
ReplyDeleteThen brainf*ck would be like the Flying Spaghetti Monster Religion: brainf*ck is a parody of language in the form of a satirical protest to the simplicity of compilers and complexity of languages
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteLet's try this again: I'M NOT SAYING THAT THE QUR'AN INCITES VIOLENCE. I'M SAYING THAT THERE ARE SOME RADICAL MUSLIMS WHO BELIEVE THAT THE QUR'AN IS TELLING THEM TO COMMIT ACTS OF VIOLENCE. Perhaps THEY are the ones misinterpreting it, but that's beyond the point. All I've claimed is that FOLLOWERS do it IN ITS NAME.
Also, thanks everyone for the suggestions, I'll probably end up adding my favorite suggestions to the list later (with proper credits, of course).
ReplyDelete@amz. There are a tons of radicals of every faith not just Islam. Those guys just appear to be the flavour of the month. What do we all expect after 20 odd years of antagonising!
ReplyDeleteTrying to find out what religion Delphi is: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/373105/what-religion-is-delphi
ReplyDeleteOnce more with feeling:
ReplyDeleteStack Overflow question about the religion of Delphi
(See, I know how to add HTML to my comments!)
I second Forth-as-Zen.
ReplyDeleteLua could be Islam for the sake that Allah is an ancient moon god. Fun post!
ReplyDeleteHaha, Perl-Voodoo was especially funny. The others are also very good.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to think of a language not mentioned here yet and somehow probably by a stretch connect it to the old norse Aesir faith, but all I could think of was ASP, but that is just not how I want to picture my forfathers!
ReplyDeleteWell I see Forth as the one true word. But I'm curious to see what people think of SAS?
ReplyDeleteWAIT! Did you just suggest that Ruby is the new COBOL??
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteCOBOL - like paganism - is definitely NOT dead!
ReplyDeleteThere are many millions of lines of COBOL code still humming along quite nicely just as they have done for the past 25 years or so...
LOL. Ok man, this is Awesome..
ReplyDeleteJavaScript would be Seventh Day Adventism. Though it portrays itself as a mild-mannered flock of Christianity, it plays a secret role in the ultimate worldwide armageddon. Those who casually 'browse' will ultimately burn, when JavaScript is enabled.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Zoroastrianism, the foundation of monotheistic beliefs, in particular, Judaism.
ReplyDeleteFortran would be like the Amish faith - there's a relatively small number of programmers that use it, they don't try to proselytize others into using Fortran (perhaps knowing it's futile), and if you weren't born into it (that is, it wasn't the first or second major programming language you learned) there's about zero chance you'll ever understand it (and if you do learn a little about it later in life, you'll shake your head and wonder how anyone could adhere to it). And yet its adherents refuse to let it die. Also if you have programmed in Fortran for years and then discover another language you like better you'll probably never go back, so it's likely those in the "Fortran forever" camp will shun you from then on (at least they will never admit that your new preferred language could possibly be better!). But no one denies that you can run Fortran successfully on horse-and-buggy era computers (metaphorically speaking, of course!) and if, someday, something (like an EMP) destroys all the semiconductor-based computers, the Fortran guys will probably be able to run their language on the old vacuum-tube based Univac computers, and will therefore be far ahead of their peers who need the modern semiconductor-based technology to accomplish anything!
ReplyDeleteauthor == atheist. like incompetent programmer bitching about languages for his own incompetence stereotyping different religions using shallow knowledge.
ReplyDeletePascal/delphi is Church of England. Once having quite an extensive and radical following, it has since mellowed out a lot. These days its followers have mostly given up on converting the world to their point of view. It's looked down at with some bemusement by some of the bigger languages that see themselves as more serious. Has trouble attracting young people.
ReplyDeleteMore info on LOLCODE: http://beerpla.net/2008/12/16/the-ultimate-programming-language-lolcode
ReplyDelete/s
The Java one sums up the Java coder in my office perfectly...
ReplyDeleteThe Quran is pretty explicit about killing people who don't believe in Islam. Suras 3:151 and 4:89 are some good examples, and all infidels would do well to read them and know what awaits them. Some Suras are quite explicit about how you should mutilate infidels, e.g. Sura 5:33, and there are about 100 such Suras.
ReplyDeleteBut, hey, whatever. We're only gonna metaphorically cut off your limbs and slay your whole family, I guess, and it all depends on how you read it. And to be fair, Jesus said you should mutilate yourself too instead of looking at a pretty girl with lust.
It's religion. Laugh.
That was a great joke. I am a Taoist Christian and it's probably about time I learned Haskell.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the comments about Islam, I have an uncle who converted. He was a con artist claiming to be a Christian; now he muddies the faith as he convinces followers of Islam that the western world hates those "moslems" just as people on this thread have done.
It's a shame; most of us really do respect Islam and it's followers, even though we're not very knowledgable about it. We think it's a shame that some wrong thinking peoples' perspectives distorted it in their minds into something ugly and destructive, just as Hitler's twisting of Nietzsche's philosophy turned it into something ugly and destructive.
I would put myself in harms way to prevent a follower of Islam from being harmed or mistreated because of their faith or race. I think many people reading this would do the same. What you are being told about how the western world views you is a lie. Most of us don't think like that at all.
This was a lighthearted attempt at humor and not a real stab at any religion. If you can't get that, and you think we're all out to get you, make your false accusations, bombs, guns, whatever. It is up to Allah to judge you for your lack of love, understanding and tolerance, not me.
It's a joke, folks. Get over it. All humor has the potential to insult those who are not mature enough to see it for what it is.
Peace,
Anon
wonderful... very well put
ReplyDeleteGreat. I only miss Catholicism, but that wouldn't be a programming language at all, but rather an OS, right? Probably OSX...
ReplyDelete>Machine Language is Animism - the belief that ultimately everything is made out of bits and on some level can be thought of as an executable.
ReplyDelete>
>Assembly Language is Shamanism - the idea that we can use symbols to more easily communicate with the binary world. Also that we can change the visible world by journeying into the hidden realm by the use of debuggers.
SAGE!
There is also a number of emerging exotic sects and religious groups like aspect-oriented programming, language-oriented programming or concept-oriented programming...
ReplyDeleteProlog will be scientific atheism. Everything must be logically proved.
ReplyDeleteI rather thought Java would be Sun-worship
ReplyDeleteAlmost 100% on spot, but Ruby and Python texts are switched!
ReplyDeleteAnother fact check -- Ethical Culture is a form of religious humanism.
ReplyDeleteNice - How can I incite a jihad?
ReplyDelete@amz
ReplyDeleteislam is the only religion with radical fans?
remember the cruzades ? inquisition ?
fuck all religions!
I have to quote this one guy though they made allot of religions out of him:
"Do not believe something just because it has been passed along and retold for many generations.
Do not believe something merely because it has become a traditional practice.
Do not believe something simply because it is well-known everywhere.
Do not believe something just because it is cited in a text.
Do not believe something solely on the grounds of logical reasoning.
Do not believe something merely because it accords with your philosophy.
Do not believe something because it appeals to "common sense".
Do not believe something just because you like the idea.
Do not believe something because the speaker seems trustworthy.
Do not believe something thinking, "This is what our teacher says".
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
some guy 2500 years ago ;)
And what's Brainfuck?
ReplyDeleteExcellent!
ReplyDeleteloved it!!!!
ReplyDeleteWait, I use XSLT! Am I going to Hell?
ReplyDeleteeheheh! cool
ReplyDeleteJavaScript would be Catholicizm. A lot of people did use it some time, but they never really tried to understand its concepts, but used some ready-made scripts and repeated them blindly. Now they are either converted to another religion (and bashing JS as poor religion for stupid people) or still use it because they really like the tradition around it and how easy it is. Yet there are a few people who seem to get it right and can be happy with JS, but it isn't cool to admit it (people could laugh at them).
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Scientology in vain, think to increase your budget for judiciary expenses...
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of the joke I can understand that Mormons had to have a corporation controlling them. But they get their money from tithing, just like any other church. No corporation backing it.
ReplyDeleteAwesome article, very well thought out.
> I didn't FORGET Pascal, it's just that I >couldn't find anything that really matched the > "designed for teaching" concept.
ReplyDeleteIn that respect, I think Pascal would be similar to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
I KILL YOU!
ReplyDeleteAhmed the terrorist
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neTsQng-70o)
All branches of Judaism allow conversion, though the orthodox have stringent rules. Anyone wanting to convert is 'pushed away' 3 times. They are told that they still go to heaven for doing good, they have fewer laws and they are hated less.
ReplyDelete"Why accept pain and burden when you can go to heaven just as we do?"
We accept converts but only masochistic ones. :)
As a friend of mine noted after reading this :
ReplyDelete> Bash is Atheism. Other languages are absolutely unecessary to achieve a decent result.
FORTRAN would be Ancient Pantheism. Worship of the great mainframes deities. And the lesser embedded systems.
ReplyDeleteCOBOL is Catholocism, an old religious institution that seems to have been dying for decades. But continues on in legacy.
Delphi is clearly modern restart of one of the older pantheon deities.
ActionScript - Is like evangelical Christianity. It started off very free form, dynamic and a bit loopy. But then became very strongly focused on type and more event driven.
Assembly is the druidic worshippers that built the likes of stone henge.
JavaScript is that person who things that since they're not Jewish, not Muslim, they obviously must be a Christian like Java!
Where's reformed Christianity or Calvinism in this list? Where's Catholicism?
ReplyDeleteOf course, not programming would give you the same peace of mind as not having religion or isms ;)
ReplyDeleteYou get to watch the bun fights from a condescending distance.
Asembler would be Atheism.
ReplyDeleteThere is no language. There is only the machine.
Who could omit:
ReplyDelete-Assembly Language- functionally equivalent to Animism, the worship of the spirit inherent in the elements,
and,
-Forth- Devil Worship (from my experience).
++++++++[>++++++++<-]>++++++.<+++++[-<+++>]<[->>+<<]>>--.------. = FSM
ReplyDeleteIf C is Judaism, then Forth is Zoroastrianism. It is even more arcane, few still practice it, and yet, it could be the basis for a really tight, fast boot monitor.
ReplyDeleteThe author must be a SED/AWK scripter because the concept is completely stolen from long lost tomes, such as this:
ReplyDeletehttp://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/Archive/Rec/rec.humor.funny.reruns/2006-05/msg00028.pdf
or this:
http://www-crypto.htw-saarland.de/weber/misc/programming.html
or this:
http://everything2.com/title/programming%2520language
or this:
http://www.graficaobscura.com/future/
But I prefer just the facts:
http://www.kimsal.com/reldevsurvey/results.php?action=byReligion&religion=1
Phyton humanism?, maybe Calvinism...
ReplyDeleteI wont kill you (and dont think neither of my family, friends would) but still for me, it would be a lot more fun if the text was free from the final coupling of muslim with murderer.
ReplyDeletePlease dont kill me because I think that you assume if you are not muslim and you tease, make jokes about islam, you will get killed by a muslim.
No no, Asembly would be more like general Paganism. From the crude time before higher level languages/religon. Kind of mysterious to most of us now, but those who still practice the old ways can work powerful voodoo...
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote FORTRAN programs a long time ago. One of your repliers associated it with Greek polytheism. It's more accurate to associate FORTRAN with the worship of Cro-Magnons painting bison on cave walls to lure game to them during the hunt. It is analogous to what FORTRAN programs do, since if you are off by one column on one line, the bison don't show up.
ReplyDeleteActually, Pastafarianism (worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may his noodly appendage touch you), would be the language Whitepace:
ReplyDeletehttp://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/whitespace/
From the page:
What is Whitespace?
Most modern programming languages do not consider white space characters (spaces, tabs and newlines) syntax, ignoring them, as if they weren't there. We consider this to be a gross injustice to these perfectly friendly members of the character set. Should they be ignored, just because they are invisible? Whitespace is a language that seeks to redress the balance. Any non whitespace characters are ignored; only spaces, tabs and newlines are considered syntax.
This is a hoot. I lived it. But I always thought of C as not restrictive enough! Its the loosey goosey forefather and its nameless god has a name... the pointer!
ReplyDeleteTaoism isn't a religion
ReplyDeleteObjective-C would be Jews for jesus. They want to keep the old ways, and extend them in a lovey dovey easy-to-use ways.
ReplyDeletecocoa?
ReplyDeleteThe scandalous ommision of 'Jedi Knights' is a great insult to our order. You'll meet my light saber one dark night.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete"islam is the only religion with radical fans?"
Lighten up dude, this is supposed to be fun. Nobody is saying anything like that.
"fuck all religions!"
That's the first sensible thing you've said so far - cheers to that!
The only suggestion I would make is to change Java to Catholic Christianity, since the Catholics are the ones with all the extra rulesets and structures, and PHP to Protestant Christianity, since this includes "Cafeteria" Christianity and about 50 other Christian groups as well. Fits well with the "less coherent" idea, since there are so many Protestant denominations.
ReplyDeleteWould BASIC then be the religion of our Robotic Overlords?
ReplyDelete10 FOR PLANET=1 TO 100
20 GET PLANET
30 CONQUER PLANET
40 NEXT
50 END
RPG?
ReplyDeleteL to the OL. Never woulda pegged myself as a Muslim, guess I'd better run out and get a veil...
ReplyDeleteCafeteria Christianity suits PHP well, however you mentioned mostly good points while forgetting bad ones: it's usually misused, misunderstood, and inconsistant.
ReplyDeleteYou are missing one:
ReplyDeleteBrainf*ck would be Cthulhu Cult - It's made up, all of its followers are insane and even trying to read the code would make you lose some of your sanity.
"Also, the whole concept of "goto hell" was abandoned."
ReplyDeleteThis list is perfect!
LOL Nice article amz~...
ReplyDeleteC == Judaism? Java == Christianity? C++ == Islam? That's SOO TRUE~... LOL
Anyway~ I am a (REAL) muslim~ Joke is a joke~ And I didn't see anything wrong with your statements about Islam and C++...
Because that's true~... ;)
Christianity is not a religion.
ReplyDeleteJavaScript would be some flavor of new-age : no central server, so flexible it becomes anything you want, lots of really stupid, colorful uses out there, but also some elegant gems
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Matlab is not a programming language.
ReplyDeleteBASIC = Agnosticism. Everyone starts out here, unless firmly indoctrinated in another religion from birth. It isn't very useful, except to say that you believe in something, but it certainly isn't going to claim miracles or such.
ReplyDeleteFORTRAN = Druidism. It's been around since ancient times, and it's arcane syntax and rituals are confusing to anyone. Few practice it today (except in secret), and only a few locations still hold meaning for those of the sect.
Assembler = Deism. The assembler was created, and has been running ever since. The machine is perfect. We don't know who wrote the machine, but it IS written, and whoever did write it is not paying attention anymore.....but that is okay since the machine is perfect, and can do anything within the constraints of this reality.
Now, my question....what language would the Jehovah's Witnesses be? What about the Christian Scientists?
I guess Applescript would equate to "New Age" beliefs. It's easy to understand, relatively unrestrictive but, unfortunately, doesn't really solve any of the problems facing humanity.
ReplyDeleteI'm offended.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what about Brainfuck?
> then asm coders would be the gods
ReplyDeleteNopes.. VHDL Verilog coders are God.. as they make the processor you code on, as God made Earth and sky we walk and fly on. :)
funny, I actually left python for lua, because of all its restrictions and contradictions :)
ReplyDelete> Fact check: you can convert to Judaism (and I did).
ReplyDeleteCorollary to the theorem, you can convert to C. I did.
Wait, programming languages are NOT religions?
ReplyDeletePython, unrestrictive?
ReplyDeleteIt's only the most anal language on earth.
Whitespace errors for you!
Visual Basic should be Jehovah's Witness. Higher education among it's followers is frowned upon and there's nothing to celebrate.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! Let me suggest that Groovy is Emergent Christianity: it comes from Java, but it's much hipper, its adherents look down on the Java followers they're still friends with, and they're a lot less concerned about putting things into such rigid categories. It's also low on ceremony and can easily modify itself as needed.
ReplyDeletePowerbuilder is like radical Islam. Based on C++, but designed to be picked up easily by members without a true understanding of the tenants of the religion and generally not used to the effect that the original religion intended, usually with disastrous and lamentable results.
ReplyDeleteI do think that Standard ML is Catholicism. We have four evangelists: Milner, Tofte, Harper and MacQueen. All ML compilers rely heavily on C (Judaism) although we try to cover it all the time. Academic researchers (Nietzscheism) consider it dead, but true believers deny it and do program in SML.
ReplyDeleteOCaml is the Anti-Pope of Avignon...
Brainfuck is rennaissance.... rennaissance Christaniaty?
ReplyDeletethe revival of the turing machine
ROTFLMAO! :-) Best programming humor I encountered in quite some time!
ReplyDeleteAssembly language would be Animism or Atheism, depending on the machine-family and one's coding style. However, in all cases, self-modifying code is Cthulhu worship.
ReplyDeleteRPG would be Jehovah’s Witnesses. RPG programmers are of the elite 144,000 left in the world (because there are only 144,000 left in the world) and believe we are in the last days of the present world and lots of people make fun of them for their beliefs and rigid standards
ReplyDeleteI would add one more language to the list. I think you missed ADA. It used to be a required language for the DOD. I seem to recall.
ReplyDeleteI guess Tcl is inherently animistic. Instead of a syntax with keywords, it's a series of invocations to stored procedures of our forefathers, to which you pass a sacrifice of a string.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tcl is shinto then; the temple would be the interpreter you attached to your C program, and the torii would be the eval interface.
JavaScript is Alcholism - the more you do it, the more it rots your brain as you realize that functions are objects, your prototypes are polluting namespaces, and you just can't seem to get any closure.
ReplyDeleteSo what's Fortran?
ReplyDeleteVB 4 LIFE..
ReplyDelete@amz
ReplyDeleteYou are the only I know of, who knows this much about religions and programming languages :)
Speaking as a Muslim and as a programmer, I can definitely confirm that C++ as Islam is pretty much spot on. xD
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do prefer Python. ;)
muslim C++ programmer here and I lol'ed. Now stop hiding in your closet and come out. I need to give you a hug with this jacket Im wearing :D
ReplyDeleteI guess that means that Web 2.0 is Unitarianism. No one can figure out what it really stands for and it is intent on including everybody under the same vague umbrella while excluding the single language extremists....
ReplyDeleteVisual Basic would be Satanism - Except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist...
ReplyDeletelol.. This is funny. Hinduism could be Fortran (how come fortran is not in the list? :O) . Python is rather very new and modern language, whereas the belief of Hinduism exists for thousands years.
Hey! I am Muslim, and I found hilarious how C++ is compared. I am feeling honored too. Those who are taking it as offensive I am not sure what you are thinking of. :-/
Very Very amusin. I would call this mostly accurate...If you switched Perl and Python, then it would be completely accurate.
ReplyDeleteexcellant ^_^
ReplyDeleteje confirme pour le VB...
JavaScript is the Jedi religion. Those who master it can do anything.
ReplyDeletethis is near genius
ReplyDeleteBravo!
RPG would be like Episcopalian.
ReplyDeleteUp thru RPG III very structured and rigid. With the advent of RPG IV and especially RPG Free, very anti-traditional values and morals.
I would assign Applescript an analogy to Shinto: It pervades everyday life on Mac OS X, has few requirements or taboos, has been around practically forever (it started life as Hypercard), and is easy to get your mind around. It also has Steve Jobs as its Amaterasu. The only problem: As Shinto is confined solely to Japan, so Applescript is confined solely to Mac OS X and is found nowhere else.
ReplyDeleteAssembly is Atheism... followers believe that whatever you do, there is only the reality on the chip. You shouldn't need intermediary or 'fake' rules to deal with the reality right in front of you, but they can be useful for guidance so long as you don't believe them. They believe if you can handle it, you are enlightened, but understand a human need for simplicity. Try to argue with them though, and you'll get an earful.
ReplyDeleteAssembly is prehistory paganism. It is vague, mysterious, and there are many different versions. Most people are not even aware that it exists. Those who know only high level languages it find it to be so simplistic that it's like hanging the Mona Lisa next to a cave drawing.
ReplyDeleteBinary is Maxism. It is hyper rational and perfectly efficient...in theory. But in practice it's impossible to do. Anyone who tries to follow this creed will most likely lose their mind. However, it is founded on the fascinating idea that a thing and it's antithises can be combined to create somthing very powerful and much better.
Languages - I've done C, C++, C# and now I do Java. I'm a liberal Java programmer
ReplyDeleteOnly I'm getting into PIC Assembler now. Maybe I need to talk to whatever the Java programming equivalent of a vicar is about such worrying heathen practices. That would be animism with ultra-small temples, or village shrines. Microcontrollers get everywhere.
Religiously I fall somewhere between Hindu Advaita and Buddhist Theravada if at all - and I've never heard of Erlang. I'd think Hinduism would be a virtual machine of some kind - as all sorts of different languages can be used on top of it but they are all really just different ways of looking at the same bytecode.
We're pretty easy going on what kind of deity if any you worship, but have strong ideas about how, things like non-selfishness, non harming - a bit like a programmers saying "I don't care what language, but good encapsulation and no gotos!"
:-) - Richard
"JavaScript is the Jedi religion. Those who master it can do anything." But sadly has a poor basis in reality, and it's application seems to create many problems that were never intended or hardly anticipated by its creator. It lives in a box, but for some reason its followers keep putting it in places it never should have gone. There is also create controversy that a sequel would kill the last bit of dignity that might remain.
ReplyDeletelate, w/e
ReplyDelete@Jordi: you may want to check this. For the suras you mentioned you may want to actually read it (and its context) before pulling any conclusions.
This list kinda sucks. And so do most of the comments below it (in fact, they're worse -- someone should disable comments). May I remind you that the only way this list can be funny is if you accept the characterizations of religions above as representative MIScharacterizations of them. That being said, I worship sex, money and generally being an ass to as many people as possible, just like House.
ReplyDeleteFirst, It's quite obvious the author is sleeping with van Rossum and his groupies. If the analogy is to be treated strictly, then humanism suffers from some analogue to broken scoping. Feel free to turn that into a dirty joke.
Second, while I've never really used Visual Basic, I've also never understood the irrational hatred towards it. It's used quite frequently for developing interfaces among engineers, probably because they don't have to waste their time packing some stupid GTK boxes with widgets as if it were a game of Klotski (actually, the packing model is kinda nice, but I need comprehensible fodder). My feeling is that it's hated only because it's cool to hate by obscurantists and miscreants, just like it was cool to hate Jews in Nazi Germany for their successes.
Third, atheism is not synonymous with science as was implied above, just as science and religion aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, in the proper sense. Stop the banality. It's an old tired wank of a mantra, and repeating it makes you sound like you were raised by a sexually abusive father.
Fourth, in Catholicism, the actual "structures" and "rules" are actually quite few, contrary to what I thought, and what many seem to believe. In other words, there is very little that makes up Canon law, there is very little of what constitutes dogma, or fundamental beliefs/premises, the pope ultimately only has to be taken seriously by Catholics if what he says is spoken from the chair, or ex cathedra, which seldom happens. I don't know where this overextension of papal infallibility came from. I guess the word "infallible" just scares the bejesus out of people. But so do other things which people don't understand.
Fifth, while certain religious, as well as atheists (e.g. Nazis, Soviets) committed murder on massive scales, it does not imply that the religions themselves are to blame. People are after all people. A religion isn't always followed by its adherents. Besides, who said killing large numbers of people is such a bad thing? Is it ethics by consensus, or ethics by nature? Think about where you get your alleged "rights" from while you're at it. Mob-rule (democracy, but consensus), or careful study?
Sixth, how does Lisp have no syntax. It most certainly does, and it's well-defined, but the complexity of the grammar is reduced thanks to prefix notation.
God, I feel like Luther nailing his theses into the blog door, except less heretical, and I didn't marry a nun.
This article seems to imply that many people are antiCmites...
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a few silver bullets all at once... but at some point aren't people going to let go of the "there can be only one" mentality?
ReplyDeleteNice list... ;)
I couldn't understand anything what was said. could yall write using binary numbers?!?!
ReplyDelete"C# would be Mormonism" Mormons aren't any more centralized than any other Christian belief system, though they did take a dramatically strange course to get were they're at. Its more like a fork of an existing religion and heavily modifying the core foundation like VB.NET is to pre-.NET VB.
ReplyDeleteFORTRAN is the Catholicism practiced by the high priests of that religion -- it is Latin, the language of the Tridentine Mass. It once was widespread. People were baptized into use of FORTRAN. Now, many think of it as a dead language.
ReplyDeleteBut it is still used in the enclaves of the power centers of Catholicism where a high throughput vector processor known as the Prime Operational Port Element (or "POPE") directly connects with God.
Catholicism for the masses, no doubt implemented on massively parallel platforms, no longer uses FORTRAN.
Pascal may be atheism. Although it has strong rules it seems the basic idea was secular in all Merriam-Webster meaning of the world secular (especially with meaning 3a).
ReplyDeleteThe Most Perfect of all languages has been omitted: PL/1. The Multics OS was, I believe, written in PL/1.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that this would mean that ASM would be some kind of Neitzchean philosophy: it gets down to the core fundamentals, but makes everyone else feel deeply uncomfortable in the process.
ReplyDeletePascal would be the Amish or Anabaptists. A language based on teaching for a small, community propagated strictly by teaching.
ReplyDelete>Islam has never been offensive, it has always
ReplyDelete>been defensive and every one has the right of
>defence even in modern democratic world.
Muhammed married a six year old girl and had sex with her when she was nine years old.
Also, he was a mass murderer and robber.
The Koran doesn't incite murder and violence?
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/terrorist2.html
Clearly some people are suffering self inflicted delusions, like Muhammed did.
Postscript is like one of those weird native south american religions where you have to get completely mashed on psychoactive herbs to program in it and then spend the next two days solid vomiting
ReplyDeleteFor a language as old and idiosyncratic as Fort to have had as many comments as it has had is amazing. But I'd say Forth is like Humanism. Anything means just what the practitioner or worshiper means, and nothing else - unless s/he has redefined it. And only the worshiper truly understands it, even with a stack diagram.
ReplyDelete: InTheBeginning there was the WORD ;
Two suggestions...
ReplyDeleteC++ == Catholocism: bizarely rigid and arcane in certain ways, amazingly adaptable in others, possibly the most widely disseminated thing of its kind, carries a decent load of emotional baggage for its adherents.
Delphi == Zoroastrianism: ahead of its time, really seemed like it might work, but, alas, has basically died out. (Yes, I know some of us are still doing Delphi. There are a few thousand Parsis alive in India, too.)
I would say that FORTH is like kaballah -- learning it requires lots of meditation on stuff like number theory and the calculus of infinitesimals, and any written stuff on it sounds to the uninitiated to be solid gibberish, but once you know it you see that it's just a systemization of minimalism-worship.
ReplyDeleteI'd fit prolog in as Yo or Church Of Google: it attempts to be entirely rational, has a very small set of devout followers, and confuses the hell out of the uninitiated, and despite all that still suffers from bouts of irrationality now and then.
As for fitting in discordianism, I am vaguely aware of several languages (intercal was probably one of them) that were outright stated to be discordian pranks, but I've always felt that Perl was actually just a supremely successful example of Operation Mindfuck. It probably goes with the discordian ethic too, but I haven't gotten around to getting a few buckets to store the vomit so I can read some of it.
D is like voodoo: it's based on a synthesis of the abrahamic and pagan, and at first glance it seems to make a lot of sense when you just want to get things done, but it turns out that even when you become an adept most of the work you do still involves theumatergy and asking deities for help, and at the end of the day the government still refuses to recognize it as legit.
(Btw, just to disclaim further argument, my personal faith is Discordianism and I have no strong opinions on judaism, christianity, or islam)
Hinduism isn't polytheistic. Do some real research.
ReplyDelete