Articles about programming are usually much easier to understand when they incorporate actual code snippets. The code that appears usually employes objects from the our day to day world thereby making the concepts easier to understand. For example, Hibernate documentation brings to life the concept of composition through the use of examples that utilize Cat and Kitten POJOs. After all, what is more natural than saying a Cat has Kittens?
However, the theme for this blog is the Cthulhu Mythos, and so it only seems natural that code snippets and so forth somehow involve the mythos. To help overcome the confusion that will arise from this practice, I've set up this dictionary. For each word I'll give a brief explanation of the role that it plays in programming, together with an example. In addition, when relevant, I'll include a bit of Mythos context as well.
Ancient One: (Programming): An abstract service or API (example: the JMS provider specification). (Mythos): Any of a number of powerful beings, possibly from outside our space time continuum.
Cthulhu: (Programming) A concrete instance of an abstract service or API (example: Oracle's AQ JMS provider implementation). (Mythos): Ancient one who is currently slumbering in R'lyeh. First created by H.P. Lovecraft in the short story, "The Call of Cthulhu".
Cultist: (Programming) 1. A client which interacts with a service (example: a web application calling Google Maps API). 2. A client interface (example: the MessageListener class for JMS). (Mythos): Anyone (human or otherwise) who worships and/or serves one or more Ancient ones.
CthulhuCulitst: (Programming): A concrete instance of a an abstract client. (Mythos): Someone who aspires to awaken Cthulhu from sleep. Chants: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"
CultistService: (Programming): A utility class for working with other classes (example: Spring's BeanUtils class for working with Spring beans).
TimeAndSpace: (Programming) Intermediate program/process responsible for processing and routing client requests (example: Google search engine). (Mythos): The space time continuum.
Yog-Sothoth: (Programming) A concrete instance of an abstract service or API (example: Apache's MQ JMS provider implementation). (Mythos): An ancient one who is both co-terminous with all time and space, yet outside the space time continuum. Created by H.P. Lovecraft and first appeared in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".
