42dev

The name 42dev

You’re probably one of the many people who wonder what the heck 42dev actually means. Well, you’ve possibly worked out the dev part as meaning “development” on your own. But what could the number mean?

Douglas Adams wrote a series of novels back in 1979 called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (originally a radio series). Those books featured a super computer named Deep Thought built by an alien race that had one single assignment: compute the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to find the answer, which turns out to be:

Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself remains unknown.

So in that regard the name 42dev means that I create your custom answer to your specific requirements. Well, I thought it was kind of clever and funny in a geeky way. Thanks to Oliver Sommer for coming up with the idea!

I’ve heard it’s classy to end with a quote, so here is one connected to Douglas Adams’ story and the problem of knowing the answer but not the exact question:

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”