Some years ago I wrote up a joke blog post comparing programming languages to various kinds of motorized vehicle. One of the early gags is that Java is "a fully operational vehicle! Unfortunately, it’s one of those big American clunkers from the 1970s; breaks down a lot, lousy gas mileage, and aggressively styled in a way that just looks tacky nowadays," with a picture of a 1971 Ford Ranchero, and C# is "much the same as Java, but from a different manufacturer," with a picture of a 1972 Cadillac. At the very end, we have "Lisp has been around forever, and for that whole time has been more advanced than most anything else you can find, but is difficult for the average driver to wrap their head around. It’s as if it were provided to us by aliens or something" and a picture of the TARDIS (exterior).

The article never mentions the ML family of programming languages. It occurred to me in the shower yesterday morning that it would be clever to refer back to the 1970s-cars gag and end with "ML is much the same as Lisp, but from a different manufacturer" ... but the problem is, what vehicle would that be? What other sufficiently advanced alien civilization and their personal vehicles are comparable to the Time Lords and their TARDISes in the same way that 1970s General Motors products are comparable to 1970s Ford products?

Anyone have a suggestion? I don't think it needs to be a time machine for the joke to work, but it should be personal transportation, not a Big Dumb Object or a space naval vessel.

Weirdly, I just thought of three possible examples and they're all from the works of Jack Kirby: a Mother Box / Boom Tube, an Apokoliptian Battle Harness, and the Silver Surfer's surfboard.

Or, while we're thinking of Cosmic Comics, a Green Lantern power ring. :)

--G.
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I really ought to read a bunch of Jack Kirby back catalog sometime just so I know what everyone is riffing on. :-)

First things that come to mind are from anime:

Juraian tree-ships and the Sol Bianca.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-12-18 AT 09:48 PM (EST)
 
Star Trek transporter? Not really personal transportation, but well known enough for people to recognize it and sufficiently advanced.

I would also argue that Smalltalk is closer to that description than ML is. For ML I would envision a gurney with the patient strapped down and unable to move.

-VR
Haskell,on the other hand...
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."

Ship of Imagination.

The phone booth from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Complete with Rufus.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

This.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"