[yunong]

Right, I agree with this. There's nothing magic about any of this -- ultimately it's all just software, hardware and physics.

To describe something as magic in a serious context is toxic. We're not sleight of hand performers, we're engineers. It's more helpful to state something like, "this library is complicated and the internals are beyond the scope of this post". A pointer to documentation and source code on libuv would be even better. In face, this series of articles on libuv are a great start for those who are interested: https://nikhilm.github.io/uvbook/introduction.html

[z1mm32m4n]

If all occurrences of "this is [magic]" are treated as "this is [sufficiently complicated internally and beyond the scope of this post]," then what's the difference? The former makes for a point that's expressed more succinctly and eloquently at little real loss.

[yunong]

I went and looked in the Oxford English Dictionary and did not find your definition of magic there. http://www.oed.com/search?searchType=dictionary&q=magic&_sea...

[Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd]

Definition 2a seems related: "Producing [...] remarkable results, like those attributed to magic [...]; effecting or permitting change, success, etc., as if by magic."

Also the 'magic box'.

The Urban Dictionary (the place where I look for colloquialisms) has this definition: "with or through complexity either spurios to the contemproary context or to long to be reasonable or desired of explanation". [1]

1: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=magic&defid=9...

[angrybits]

This is what we like to call a "figure of speech". It means that we do not believe to be literally magic, but are using hyperbole to describe a situation where something happens and it's not immediately apparent why.