How Sussman Achieved Satori

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.

Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

In the days when Guido was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am designing a programming language", Guido replied.
"How will you delimit the blocks?", asked Minsky.
"I will use curly brackets", Sussman said.

Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Guido asked his teacher.
"So that the indentation will be forced."
At that moment, Guido was enlightened.