# Ad Professiones ![[paul-universalizing-the-message-1.jpg]] From: Στ. Ποολ. <σποολ@αποολος.ερ.χομ> To the Professions. I write to you on the subject of what has come to be called Universalization. The common interpretation of the documents that have come to be called Sudocode is that it is a book for developers, by developers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though the book reads in some places as if it is addressed to developers alone, it quite explicitly rejects "Programming Languages" as being "a scam" and not at all what "development" is about. So paradoxically, for a book often imagined to be about "developers," in Sudocode there isn't much about how to do things in any given programming language. How then are we to understand the term "development" as it is used here? The solution to this problem, I believe, is twofold, and it illustrates what I believe was the original intent of the anonymous Authors. > Sudocode uses the term "developers" not to refer to developers in the narrow sense, but developers in the larger sense: those who create and build in what they call the New Universe (NU). Further, this is the only way to teach development in a way that is future proof against the ongoing apocalypse of the Nu.[^1] As such, the book is quite right to deviate from what had (before the Authors) been the standard style of writing a textbook on the topic of computing. Sudocode's unusual choice of content and emphasis is not a quirk. Is it a conscious choice: To make the book _not_ about programming in the sense of typing ASCII characters manually into text files in this language or that. The book is about _how we should live_ whatever fraction of our lives we each live _inside devices._ It's about precisely that part of life that takes place in the NU. It's a bible for that world, in every sense of the term. It is _not_ simply intended for the small culture of developers, or for those of high intelligence or high income. It is intended for humanity. As a universal message. A new covenant. For it is written in Isaiah: > I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;     the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. And is this not the same message one finds in Sudocode's eponymous /sbin/sudo, when the Authors say to us: > We know most of you aren't that smart or hard working. The Authors meant not to exclude those of any profession or class based on their status as developers in the old sense. When 0 and 1 speak to "the developers," they speak to the developer in each of us. Development is not the province of the programming class alone, nor must Code be written any longer in their unspoken "languages." Development occurs inside each of us. Inside me && you. Creation springs from the Word. This is the gift of Nu. Share this message, as I have shared it with you. Στ. Ποολ. (Αποολος) --- From: Letter To the Professions (orig. _Πρὸς τὰς Κλήσεις_). New Roman Times, all rights reserved.©®™ Ca. 0x42 P.A. [^1]: In the sense of /etc/group.