Unraveling the Recursive Absurd: When Markdown Files Become Functions

Summary

We built walls between modules, templates, and functions. Then we built tools to manage those walls. Then tools to manage the tools. Each layer justified by "foundational wisdom" nobody questions anymore.

But authentic experimentation breaks the loop. Build something real, refactor until it feels right, and watch the walls collapse.

Django-Spellbook accidentally proved it: markdown files ARE Python functions.
Other projects prove it: templates ARE functions, components ARE functions.
Different doors, same discovery.

The recursive absurd thrives on false complexity. Unraveling it means finding the base case that was always there, just buried under patterns we inherited.

Terminology:

The Recursive Absurd

Systems that build systems that build us. No base case, no unwinding, just deeper loops of manufactured complexity.

We maintain distinctions because they exist, not because they're real. We defend complexity as "necessary architecture" while forgetting why we separated things in the first place.

The recursive absurd feeds on unexamined inheritance - accepting how things are done because that's how they're done.

Authentic Experimentation

Building real things and discovering real patterns, not prescribed ones. Refactoring until your brain stops fighting the design. Finding what actually IS rather than what you were told SHOULD BE.

The opposite of top-down architecture astronomy. You build, you notice patterns, you simplify to base case, you rebuild from truth.

This is how modules become functions - not through theory but through doing.

I. The Accidental Discovery

Django-Spellbook started with frustration, not philosophy.

"Why do I need three files just to show some markdown content?"
- A view to fetch the markdown
- A template to wrap it
- URL configuration to wire it up

Just to display documentation that was already written. The same boilerplate, over and over, for what should be the simplest thing in web development: showing words on a screen.

Django-Spellbook: The Technical Journey

The Django-Spellbook team made several key discoveries through pure trial and error:

First Attempt: We tried treating markdown as static templates. Failed immediately - no dynamic content, no context passing, just dead HTML.

Second Attempt: Pre-process markdown into Django templates. Better, but now we had two compilation steps and debugging was hell.

The Revelation: What if markdown files just... were Python functions? Not metaphorically, but literally. The spellbook_md command transforms each .md file into a Python function that returns HttpResponse.

The Architecture:
- Each markdown file gets parsed for frontmatter (metadata) and content
- The parser generates a corresponding Python view function
- URL patterns are auto-generated from the file structure
- SpellBlocks (### Why These Walls Were Built (The History Nobody Teaches) Before you tear down a fence, understand why someone built it. The separations in software weren't arbitrary - they solved real problems in their time: **Templates vs Logic (circa 1990s):** When web development exploded, designers used Dreamweaver and developers used IDEs. Separating HTML templates from business logic let both groups work without merge conflicts. PHP's mixed approach created maintenance nightmares that traumatized a generation. **Modules vs Functions (circa 1970s):** As codebases grew beyond what one person could hold in their head, modules provided namespacing and organization. `calculate_tax()` is ambiguous. `financial.tax.calculate()` tells you exactly where to look when it breaks. **Content vs Code (forever):** When your content author accidentally breaks production because they typed a quote mark wrong, you learn why CMSes exist. ### The Cost-Benefit Calculation Nobody Does Each separation has costs: - **Synchronization overhead:** Keeping templates and logic in sync - **Translation layers:** Converting between different mental models - **Tool proliferation:** Template engines, build systems, compilers - **Learning curves:** Each boundary requires its own expertise But also benefits: - **Team scalability:** Different skill sets can contribute - **Error isolation:** Bad markdown doesn't crash your server - **Testing simplicity:** Pure functions are easier to test than mixed concerns - **Cognitive load distribution:** Not everyone needs to understand everything The problem isn't the separations themselves - it's when we stop asking if the benefits still outweigh the costs in our specific context. ### Modern Context Changes Everything What changed that makes Django-Spellbook possible now but not in 2005? 1. **Tooling got smarter:** Modern parsers, type systems, and build tools can maintain safety without rigid separation 2. **Teams got smaller:** A 3-person startup doesn't need the same boundaries as a 300-person enterprise 3. **Deployment got safer:** Rollbacks are instant, testing is automated, errors don't mean downtime 4. **Developers got fuller-stack:** The mythical "designer who doesn't code" is increasingly rare The boundaries that made sense for large teams shipping quarterly releases to physical servers don't necessarily make sense for small teams deploying continuously to the cloud. ### The Pattern Recognition Engine New developers face a choice: learn the rules to follow them, or learn the rules to understand them. Choose understanding. Learn the separations first: - Why templates traditionally stay separate from logic - Why modules aren't usually functions - Why content and code lived in different worlds Understanding these boundaries isn't accepting them forever. It's mapping the maze before you find the secret passages. Every rule you learn thoroughly becomes a rule you can later transcend consciously rather than accidentally. The difference between wisdom and ignorance isn't breaking rules - it's knowing which rules are real constraints (memory management, network latency) and which are social conventions (templates must be dumb). ## III. The Pattern Beneath the Pattern When you strip away the syntactic sugar, the design patterns, the architectural astronomy, what remains? Functions. Everything is functions. - Modules? Functions that return namespaces - Templates? Functions that return strings - Components? Functions that return UI - Markdown? Functions that return HTML The recursive absurd convinced us these were fundamentally different, requiring different tools, different mental models, different languages even. We built elaborate systems to manage the complexity of keeping them separate. But authentic experimentation reveals the truth. When you actually build something and keep refactoring until it feels right, everything collapses into the same pattern: thing takes input, returns output. The rest is costume.


    
    
        
            This isn't abstract philosophy - it's what you discover when you actually trace through what happens in any system. A Python module gets imported and returns a collection of capabilities. A template receives context and returns formatted text. A React component accepts properties and returns a description of UI elements. Django-Spellbook's markdown files take HTTP requests and return HTTP responses.
The tools try to hide this truth behind specialized vocabulary. Modules have "imports" and "exports." Templates have "inheritance" and "blocks." Components have "props" and "state." But strip away the jargon and it's all the same pattern: receive something, transform it, return something else.
Even more revealing is what happens with AI-Assisted Engineering. When you write documentation first - "this system should validate user input and return appropriate errors" - you're already describing a function in plain language. The boundary between documentation and implementation starts to dissolve because they're both describing the same transformation, just at different levels of detail.
This is why Django-Spellbook feels like cheating - it's not doing something magical, it's just refusing to pretend that markdown content and Python views are fundamentally different things. Both take requests and return responses. The artificial separation was purely conventional, not architectural.
The recursive absurd thrives on these false distinctions. We build entire tool chains, educational curricula, and career paths around boundaries that don't actually exist in the underlying computation.



### The Compiler Was Inside You All Along

Every developer is a compiler, translating intent into syntax. We just convinced ourselves that different intents needed different languages. Business logic gets Python or Java. Presentation gets HTML and CSS. Configuration gets YAML or JSON. Documentation gets Markdown.

But what Django-Spellbook accidentally proved - and what modern AI tools are making undeniable - is that these are all just different syntaxes for expressing transformations. The mental model is always the same: given this input, produce that output. The rest is preference, convention, and accumulated cruft.

### Why We Maintain the Illusion

The separations persist because they serve social, not technical, functions:

**Job Security:** "I'm a backend developer" sounds more specialized than "I write functions that return data." The more boundaries we maintain, the more specialized roles we can create.

**Team Politics:** Separate languages mean separate territories, separate budgets, separate importance. The frontend team and backend team need different tools because they're different teams, not because the problems are fundamentally different.

**Tool Vendors:** Every boundary needs a bridge, preferably one with enterprise pricing and annual licenses. The entire build tool ecosystem exists to manage complexity we created by refusing to admit everything is functions.

**Education Industry:** More languages means more courses, more certifications, more experts. You can't sell a course on "everything is functions" but you can sell separate courses on React, Django, DevOps, and "full-stack development."

The recursive absurd feeds on these social constructions. We maintain complexity not because we need it, but because entire economies depend on it.

### The Simplicity on the Other Side

Once you see everything as functions, development becomes radically simpler. Need to render UI? Function that returns elements. Need to store data? Function that returns state changes. Need to handle requests? Function that returns responses. Need to document behavior? Function specifications in markdown that, with AI assistance, become the implementation.

This isn't reductionism - it's clarity. When you stop juggling mental models and start thinking in transformations, the artificial complexity evaporates. What seemed like fundamentally different problems reveal themselves as variations on a theme.

Django-Spellbook didn't set out to prove this. They just wanted to stop writing boilerplate. But by treating markdown files as functions, they accidentally revealed what was always true: the boundaries were theater, not architecture. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you build with this understanding, you can't go back to pretending the walls are real.

## IV. The Unraveling Process

How do you unravel the recursive absurd? Not through theory but through practice:

**Build something real.** Not a toy, not an example. Something you actually need. Django-Spellbook wasn't an experiment in functional programming - it was "I'm sick of writing views for markdown content."

**Follow the friction.** When something feels wrong, dig deeper. Why do templates need their own language? Why can't markdown files be modules? The friction points to false boundaries.

**Refactor toward simplicity.** Not clever simplicity that requires a PhD to understand. Actual simplicity. When templates collapse into functions, the code gets simpler AND more powerful.

**Find the base case.** Under all the abstraction, what's actually happening? Input → transformation → output. That's it. That's all it ever was.

**Rebuild from truth.** Once you see the base case, you can't unsee it. Now build what you actually need, not what the recursive absurd told you to.

## V. The Convergent Discovery

The best evidence that you've found something real: multiple projects discover it independently.

We're seeing convergent discovery across the ecosystem:
- Markdown becomes executable (Django-Spellbook)
- Templates become functions (multiple template engines)
- Components become functions (modern frameworks)
- Styles become functions (CSS-in-JS)
- Configuration becomes code (Infrastructure as Code)

This isn't fashion or trend-following. It's independent teams stumbling onto the same base truth: the separations were never necessary. We're all unraveling the same recursive absurd from different angles.

The "foundational wisdom" that kept these things separate wasn't wisdom at all. It was accumulated cruft, each generation adding more complexity to manage the complexity they inherited.

## VI. The Authentic Alternative

Instead of accepting inherited complexity, we can build from base truth:

**Question every boundary.** Why is this separate? Who benefits from the separation? Usually, it's not you.

**Build tools that reveal rather than conceal.** Django-Spellbook doesn't hide that markdown becomes functions - it celebrates it. Transparency over magic.

**Document your discoveries.** When you find a false boundary, write about it. Others are probably fighting the same fiction.

**Choose boring base cases.** Functions aren't exciting. Input→output isn't revolutionary. That's the point. The recursive absurd loves complexity. Simplicity is rebellion.

## VII. The Patient Path

For those still learning: this isn't about skipping steps. You can't transcend boundaries you don't understand. 

Master the conventional wisdom first. Learn why people separate templates from logic. Understand the arguments for keeping modules and functions distinct. Build things the "right" way until you understand why that way exists.

Then - and only then - start questioning. Push against the boundaries. See which ones push back with good reasons and which ones crumble at first contact.

The recursive absurd maintains itself through two mechanisms:
1. Unexamined acceptance by those who never question
2. Premature rejection by those who never understood

True unraveling requires the middle path: understand deeply, then simplify ruthlessly.

## VIII. The Call to Experiment

Stop accepting. Start experimenting.

Take something you've always done separately - templates and logic, content and code, configuration and programming. Try combining them. Not because someone told you to, but to see what happens.

Build something. Refactor it. Follow it where it wants to go, not where design patterns say it should go. Find your own base case.

The recursive absurd maintains itself through unchallenged inheritance. Every boundary you genuinely understand, then consciously question, weakens its grip. Every false wall you tear down makes room for something real.

This is how we unravel: not through manifestos or methodologies, but through building things and noticing what's actually true.

Modules are functions. Templates are functions. Everything is functions wearing different hats.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once enough of us see it, we can stop pretending the walls are real.

But first, we must learn the walls. Map the maze. Understand the boundaries.

Then transcend them.

Markdown Functions

Unraveling the Recursive Absurd: When Markdown Files Become Functions

I. The Accidental Discovery