from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
deep magic
n.
[poss. from C. S. Lewis's Narnia books] An awesomely arcane technique
central to a program or system, esp. one neither generally published
nor available to hackers at large (compare {black art}); one that
could only have been composed by a true {wizard}. Compiler
optimization techniques and many aspects of {OS} design used to be
{deep magic}; many techniques in cryptography, signal processing,
graphics, and AI still are. Compare {heavy wizardry}. Esp.: found in
comments of the form "Deep magic begins here...". Compare {voodoo
programming}.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
deep magic
[possibly from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] An awesomely
arcane technique central to a program or system, especially
one neither generally published nor available to hackers at
large (compare {black art}); one that could only have been
composed by a true {wizard}. Compiler optimisation techniques
and many aspects of {OS} design used to be {deep magic}; many
techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and
AI still are. Compare {heavy wizardry}. Especially found in
comments of the form "Deep magic begins here.". Compare
{voodoo programming}.