Charles Petzold

The poet laureate of Victorian England (from 1850 until his death in 1892) may be assumed to have written little about Windows programming. Yet, consider the following excerpts from Tennyson's poem Morte d'Arthur, first published in 1842 and later expanded and incorporated into the epic Idylls of the King in 1870. This famous passage occurs towards the end of King Arthur's deathbed speech:

'The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

In that passage, we can interpret "God" as a reference to Microsoft, which has fulfilled itself with various "customs" of Windows programming (Win32 API, MFC, WinForms, etc).

A dozen lines later the speech concludes with a blunt confirmation of this interpretation, albeit with an alternate spelling of "Avalon":

But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst — if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) —
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'

The "grievous wound" is particularly poignant, although I'm not sure whether he's referring to the scars caused by exposure to Win32 or COM.