Software Programs

Broader: computing

Roles: program, input, output, failure-mode, operator

Executable processes that take input, transform it, and produce output. In metaphorical use, programs are frequently personified — they “want” things, “refuse” to cooperate, “die”, and “wake up”. This personification makes programs a natural target domain for embodied and social metaphors.

As Target Frame (27)

• embodied-experience → Big Ball of Mud
• food-and-cooking → Baklava Code
• tool-use → Boat Anchor
• social-behavior → Cargo Cult Programming
• embodied-experience → Code Smell
• mythology → Deep Magic
• animal-husbandry → Dogfooding
• folk-taxonomy → Duck Typing
• religion → God Object
• tool-use → Golden Hammer
• physics → Heisenbug
• mythology → Hydra Code
• puzzles-and-games → Jenga Code
• natural-phenomena → Lava Flow
• social-behavior → Monkey-Patching
• mythology → Magic Number
• social-roles → Orphan Process
• embodied-experience → Program Failure Is Bodily Failure
• competition → Race Condition
• communication → Rubber Duck Debugging
• war → Shotgun Debugging
• embodied-experience → Software Rot
• food-and-cooking → Spaghetti Code
• economics → Technical Debt
• animal-husbandry → Yak Shaving
• puzzles-and-games → Yo-Yo Problem
• mythology → Zombie Process