Greetings Elliott,

Many here have already posted good definitions of what programming "magic" may be. However, I think there is an important distinction between "general magic" and "Perl magic" that needs to be addressed.

In the world of "real" magic (i.e. those various "tricks" and such used by professional non-IT magician entertainers), there is an unwritten law forbidding the sharing of the secrets behind the magic. As a professional magician, you are called on not to tell anyone how your tricks work. It is of paramount importance in that community to protect these secrets from public view.

In the Perl universe, the complete inverse seems to be true. There seems to be an unwritten law stating that as a Perl hacker, your duty is to do you best to explain your "magic" to others (so long as they don't expect you to code everything for them). The desire of a hacker to share knowledge of the "how to" behind the complicated and often amazing "magic" is often considered a virtue.

My observations of other language user groups around lead me to believe that most if not all other language centers live philosophically somewhere between the two extremes.

-gryphon
code('Perl') || die;