There are a few computer science ideas that form part of the basis of this poem. Letters such as i,j,k,a,b,c,m,n,x,y and z are commonly used by novice computer programmers as variables, especially as “counter variables,” hence, and for other reasons, the “i.” Counter variables are used by computer programmers to count how many times a program has gone through a processing loop. Loops are a common notion in computer programming, as well as being a variation on a circle, something I use often in my work. Counting, in this case, also obliquely refers to the North American Plains Indian notion of “counting coup,” which values touching an enemy over killing them in the midst of battle. In computer jargon, a “daemon” is a program that works for the operating system, instead of for the user. Some other programming terminology and ideas made their way into this project, though they are usually used in an ambiguous or polysemous way, and do not require the reader to know much about computers. Many of the computer terms in this work are used in the database query language known as SQL, or are used as common word processing terms, or can be found in the relational database language known as 4th Dimension.
Roberto Harrison: Introduction to Counter Daemons
15 July 2006
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