Imagine for a moment if you were a single cell and needed to find an efficient method of absorbing nutrients. You could absorb them directly from the environment across your plasma membrane. Hey! It works, problem solved.
Wait a minute, a rival cell developed proteins that form channels that allow specific nutrients in. It was initially more energetically expensive, but they’re much more efficient now. I guess we better do the same…
Awesome! Not only does that work, but we developed a new feature called a cilia that helps us get around and find new environments.
Wait a minute, this isn’t what we expected. We were used to water being everywhere, now there are all these new chemicals, including a super poisonous one called oxygen. Ugh!
This is huge! We found a way to use oxygen as an energy source, and with all these new features we found a way to combine multiple cells into a single functioning unit. We even have specialized cells that focus on specific tasks, allowing us to find new envionments!
All of these abstract methods allow us to do more and more complex things once we simplify and streamline the basic functions we already use. Metaprogramming is like that.
I give metaprogramming an 8/10.