The Manifesto of the Futurist Programmers

I thought the same thing. Here's my translation (don't hate me):

Let us make an end also to the wasters of disk space who clutter up our machines and profane our lightning-fast memories!

Translation: Down with Windows!

An end to the quick-money architecture of the jobbers of the prefabricated!

Translation: Down with uhh ... uhhh ???

An End to the common run of program decorators, the fakers of technology, the masters of software cosmetology who sell themselves, and the slovenly and thick headed "managers"!

Translation: Down with consultants!

It's an homage to the wave of artistic and poetic manifestos in the early 20th century that sought to sweep away old and rotten forms. Specifically, it's a detailed copy of http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto..., with painting references replaced by programming ones.

These manifestos weren't intended to be understandable, exactly. They were poetic and designed to communicate a revolutionary artistic energy. The original Futurist manifesto was by the poet Marinetti (who I think is primarily remembered for that) and had a big influence on Russian poetry. The Futurists liked speed and rebellion. They probably would have gone for rock and roll.

I agree with you that it's not clear what point about programming these authors were trying to make. Perhaps they were mostly just "covering" the original piece.

Futurism was a pre WW1 art movement in italy. The leading menbers mostly became fascists in the 1920. I don't know what someone tries to say if he places himself in this tradition.

Movements with temporal names can retain their meaning even after the passage of time. Futurism, Modernism, and Postmodernism all have specific meanings and refer to movements past their peak. You have a problem with that?

This shows up periodically on Digg, reddit, and now here. It's a joke, like Futurism itself was, at least in part.