[AKrumbach]

"these are books of computer science and/or programming that when you read them you can’t quite believe that what they claim is reality."

I feel that part of why these books seem so alien is that most people are taught programming as if it were two different disciplines: "low level" algorithms, with fixed data types, and big-O complexity theory; and "high level" systems design, with type abstraction and object patterns. While a truly skilled programmer must understand both worlds, this sort of model has them separated in the same manner physicists seem to separate general relativity and quantum chromodynamics (or oil and water).

Books on Smalltalk and Forth, like those listed in the article, frequently reveal a mode of programming which is neither purely "high" or "low" level. Yet despite their non-conformity, neither language is haphazard or capricious in design. Instead, the both seem to embody the unofficial motto of the US Army Engineers: "The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."