comments:
Ten Gentle Opportunities by Jeff Duntemann explicitly has a programming-based magic system that you can draw inspiration from. My concern is that while I find this interesting as someone who enjoys programming, it might not actually be fun to read about in a story. You will have an audience for this. There are those who will love it absolutely. It just may be smaller than mainstream. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm also worried that because I have years of programming experience, it may be difficult for me to realistically portray beginners making mistakes or struggling with concepts that seem obvious to me. Would programming subreddits help, where novice programmers ask for help? Or other similar forums? Does this sound interesting from a reader's perspective? YMMV. It's of interest to me, sure. Would the programming-inspired approach add to the story, or would it mostly be background flavor? It ought to add to the story. If it's just background flavor, then this is just generic magic in a re-skin. You don't need to go in depth at all. If you want to go in depth, those depths should be significant to the story, in plot, theme, and mood. Does the system feel too mechanical, or does it still feel like magic?I think most magic here feels mechanical. It's amoral, like technology. The morality only comes from the person using it. OTOH, what feels magical and wonderous to me is far less this and more the old-school magic: dealing with spirits to use the spirits' preternatural powers on the magician's behalf. Then magic is inherently moral or immoral, depending on the spirit. Character of the spirit becomes vastly important. So, programming-based magic is to me just as magical as almost all systems of magic presented here. In a medieval fantasy world with no concept of computers, would it be believable that many people struggle to understand and use these runes?They do not have a concept of computers, but they have concepts of algorithms, from the study of mathematics. Indeed, the word algorithm is derived from Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi's name because of the books he wrote on arithmetic and algebra (and the word algebra comes from translating the title of one of al Khwarizmi's books: The Concise Book of Calculation by Restoration and Balancing. Al-Jabr gets transliterated into Latin, and then passes into the rest of Europe. Euclid's geometry is all about algorithms: how to use certain inputs and a finite number of steps to get a certain output. So algorithms have been known and used since antiquity. Further magic is often linked to reading: grammar and grimoire are essentially cognate. Sacred or arcane geometry. Phrasing commands just so so that spirits obey. So how many people do you want to do this? How ubiquitous do you want magic to be?