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> Maybe magic isn't the distinction to make.

Or maybe this is a board full of programmers who love to fret over unimportant minutia.

The idea has a well understood meaning, just use that meaning. Yes, maybe somewhere on the edges it's fuzzy, learn to live with fuzzy.




Sure, words will always have fuzziness, but there is benefit to substituting fuzzy terms with clearer terms. Words help influence thinking, so fuzzy words can lead to fuzzy thinking.

If we are debating an API design and a colleague says "it's too much magic", is that bad thing? If I write deliverEmail(email) and the e-mail "magically" gets sent, what's wrong with that?

On the other hand, if we debate the abstraction itself--for example behavior doesn't match user expectations--then we can do better at improving the API design.




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