The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence.

"This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing."

The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said.

"Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?"

"Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to data center immediately!" And the magician returned to tower, well pleased.

Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for new program. Do you know where it might be?"

"Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on platform in the data center."

-- Geoffrey James
The Tao of Programing