Functions

Abstract

Famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, once wrote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If such a technology is indeed considered magic, its software engineers would most assuredly be viewed as its magicians. You might be familiar with some of the prototypical tricks that a magician might perform. Often their repertoire would include spectacular acts of spontaneous materialization or object transformation, through means of a magical black top hat as a medium, sprinkled with the citation of a few magic words. To extend the magical analogy, in software engineering, the magical black top hat would be considered a function and the function’s name might be deemed the magic word.