Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, which is a big deal in my tradition (Anglican church in Canada). During the festive celebration, the preacher (full disclosure: it was my turn in the rotation) spoke about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the gift of languages, as the apostles spread the news of God's love and of the Jesus by miraculously speaking in a whole pile of new languages. There was a real risk that the early believers would turn into a local sect, a regional oddity within the larger Jewish religion. Then the Holy Spirit came and literally blew them out into the streets, where they told visitors from all the surrounding nations their great news. It was, in tech-jargon, saying "Hello, World!" in a dozen or more languages. Or, more specifically, their message was "Hello, World! God loves you and Jesus Christ died for you!" Hello World being the classic first-program in any new language. There are hundreds, nay thousands of programming languages, and I...
Musings on Tests, Quality, Tools, Projects and more. By Steve Page