The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 20

“To a computer, a program is just one very big number,” she said. “So you can spend a lot of time designing and coding and testing and debugging. Or-”

He interjected, eager to make an impression, “Or you can just try out numbers and see what they do.”

“That’s right!” she said. “You’ll find word processors, web browsers, spreadsheets… Here’s your desk. Press the space bar to begin.”

He sat. He cracked his knuckles. He hit the space bar. He watched the dud-counter climb as the computer churned...