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The original was posted on /r/programminglanguages by /u/Inconstant_Moo on 2024-09-12 16:00:09+00:00.

On Facebook I saw a retired compiler engineer complaining that he’d been trying to explain what his job was to a non-technical college professor and couldn’t get it across at all. What metaphor, he asked, would be suitable? After referring him to the Monad Burrito Fallacy, I composed the following legend which I hope is not too silly for the subreddit.

Inside your computer are lots of horrible little elves who are stupid but very obedient. A mighty wizard, also known as a programmer, can give them complex intricate step-by-step orders (called a program) and they will carry them out flawlessly, but in a blind unthinking way, without ever wondering whether the next step of the orders might be pointless, or counterproductive, or fatal to the elves, or throw all the rest of the process into confusion.

From this description, you will see that it’s already almost more trouble than it’s worth to get work out of the vile little creatures. But there’s a further catch. The elves speak only a disgusting language of their own, and so in the early days of magecraft giving them the right orders taxed the wits even of the most puissant.

Pondering this, the great mage Backus spake thus in the Council of the Wise: “I will fashion yet another language, halfway between the speech of men and the speech of elves, and it shall be called Fortran.”

And they wondered thereat, and said “What the hell good will that do?”

“This Fortran”, he continued imperturbably, “shall be fashioned to be like our speech and our thoughts, that we need not bend our minds after the hideous thoughts of the elves.”

“But the elves will not know how to speak it!” called a voice from the assemblage.

“They will not”, said the great Backus, “for they are both stupid and monolingual. How I despise them! However, I will so fashion this Fortran that translating from Fortran to elvish can be done by assiduously following a set of rules, by merely toiling at a dull repetitive task.”

“And is that fit work for a mage?” one wizard cried. And Backus answered him saying, “No, my brother, it is fit work for the elves.”

“You mean — ?”

“Yes,” smiled Backus. “I will fashion one last great tome of instructions in the foul elvish tongue, telling them how to translate Fortran into elvish — the sort of dull-minded task at which they excel. And from then hence, I need only give them orders in Fortran, and they themselves shall make the elvish orders that they will then follow!”

And the Council were amazed at this, and they spake to him saying: “Well that sounds very clever but you’ll never get it to work.”

But he did all that he had foretold, and Fortran was the first of the magely tongues — the first, for others, seeing what Backus had done, strove to do likewise, and came forward boasting of their own languages, one saying “mine is more ergonomic!” and another “mine cleaveth closer to the metal!” and suchlike occult talk. But that is another tale for another time.

What all this means, my child, is that although the whole world now profits by the labors of the disgusting elves, yet their vile language is all but passed from the minds of men. And for this let us praise the high and puissant wizard Backus, the stars that shone over his cradle, and the Nine Gods who blessed him with wisdom.