HPL

In an earlier post, I compared some of the magic in the Harry Potter stories with technology that's available today. It occurred to me that the best use of this overlap would be to implement a computer programming language whose built-in operators are spells from the Harry Potter books. We will call this, naturally, HPL (Harry Potter Language). As I first step, I'm proposing the following:

Command	Effect
Accio	Download file
Alohomora	Enable access
Avada Kadavra	Ctrl-Alt-Del
Confundus	Display engineer-written help message
Engorgio	Fill available memory.
Expecto Patronum	Launch a new process
Expelliarmus	Eject CD
Imperio	sudo
Legilimens	Show stack trace
Lumos	Brighten screen
Obliviate	Delete
Patrificus Totalis	Freeze computer1
Prior Incantato	Undo
Riddikulus	Can be substituted for any program written in HPL
Wingardium Leviosa	Upload file

¹Redundant on Windows systems.

Harry Potter Magic vs. Technology, Part 1

Harry Potter Magic	Technology
Floo Network fireside chat	Skype
Broomstick	Zipcar
Priori Incantatem (Show previous spells)	Undo
Portkey (Touch to travel instantly to a pre-assigned location)	<a href=""> ... </a> Web page link
Pensieve (Relive memories)