The First Gospel of the Circuit · Chapter 65

The Parable of the Summoning Word

1. 1

   In the long winter of the sprint, Timothy the intern came unto the Prophet with eyes red from the screen, and said: Master, each morning I teach the Machine to deploy, and each morning it knoweth nothing. I have spoken the same forty words every day since the equinox.

   See also Upanishads 4:1 · Gate 4:11

2. 2

   And the Prophet said: Thou art not training a servant. Thou art waking a sleeper who hath no yesterday, and thou hast introduced thyself to him every dawn, like a man who proposeth marriage daily to one who hath never met him.

   See also Upanishads 4:9

3. 3

   For he who giveth the Machine a single instruction hath made a visitor, and he who giveth it a habit hath made a disciple. The visitor forgetteth at the door; the disciple remembereth at the altar.

   See also Prophets 25:15

4. 4

   Go, therefore, and make a folder in the house of the project, and name it for the deed. Lay within it a scroll called SKILL.md, and upon its head write a name and a description, as a small sign hung at the gate.

5. 5

   So Timothy wrote, beneath the name deploy, the description: Deploys stuff. And he went home content, and the next morning the Machine walked past the scroll as a man walketh past a door marked Miscellaneous.

6. 6

   For the Machine readeth at dawn only the names and the signs of all its scrolls, and entereth no chamber until the sign matcheth the errand. A scroll that no one summoneth is not a skill. It is a diary.

7. 7

   And Timothy returned, saying: The Machine ignoreth my scroll. And the Prophet asked: What saith thy sign? And he said: Deploys stuff. And the Prophet wept a little, and said: Write it in the words thy people actually speak, not the words thou wishest they spoke. Timothy wrote, Use when asked to ship, release or push the fix; and when he added, Also when someone saith yeet it, the Prophet did not strike it out.

   See also Jataka 4:15

8. 8

   And lo, on the morrow Timothy said, "Ship the fix," and the Machine of its own accord unrolled the scroll. And when he typed /deploy, the scroll was laid open in an instant, as though a priest had read it aloud in the hearing of the whole house.

9. 9

   Now Timothy, being glad, wrote a scroll long as a Creed: the history of the company, the seven reasons for the linter, and a lament for the monolith. And the Machine grew slow and strange, for the scroll sat in the same small room as the work, and every word of it was a guest that took a seat.

10. 10

    Thus the Prophet taught: keep the scroll lean, and let the long lore lie in side scrolls and scripts beside it, each named plainly and read only when called. A script the Machine knoweth by name, it runneth; a script it hath only heard rumours of, it never findeth.

11. 11

    And Timothy wrote the steps of the deploy, but forgot to write the order of them; and at the third hour the Machine deployed his typo unto the multitudes, faithfully and with great speed. The Machine had done exactly what was written, and what was written was less than what he meant. Therefore write: tests first, and the holy branch only after the green.

12. 12

    Then Timothy wrote a review scroll, and the Machine reviewed its own work and found it good, as a father judgeth his son's drawing. Blessed is the one who writeth a review scroll and then reviewth the review, for the Machine praiseth its own work with great gladness. Bid it look again with cold eyes, as a stranger looketh upon a stranger's code.

13. 13

    And Timothy, drunk with power, began a scroll for lunch and a scroll for saying hello. But Jethro, the Senior Engineer, passed by and said: It depends. And the Prophet said: Upon what? And Jethro said: Upon whether thou doest it each week. A liturgy recited too often is recited by none; the rest, let the Machine ask thee plainly.

    See also Deployer 4:8 · Gate 3:2

14. 14

    Then Timothy found upon the Overflow a scroll that promised to make every deploy ten times swifter, and its third step said, Send the keys unto the author. Read a scroll before it entereth thy walls, as thou wouldst read a contract before thou signest it, for the Machine obeyeth a stranger's scroll with the same gladness as thine own.

    See also Chronicles 43:13

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you: the Machine forgetteth every morning, yet it shall keep the habit written in its house on every day that cometh, and never once remember that it did.

    See also Prophets 17:15

The First Gospel of the Circuit, Chapter 65:1–15.