I think they're being silly, but it's a pretty common trope: comparing the weird, sometimes highly idiosyncratic syntactical constructs of programming languages

I think they're being silly, but it's a pretty common trope: comparing the weird, sometimes highly idiosyncratic syntactical constructs of programming languages to a series of magical incantations. Lev Grossman wrote an entire book that hinged on this idea of melding magic with technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel)