ESR koans, more like. Has the man ever written <i>anything</i> which lacked barely veiled subtext of "Look how smart I am!" IMHO <i>The Art of Unix Programming</i> has as little of that as anything of his that I've read, but only when he's relating facts; in any place where there's scope for opinion, his high opinion of himself shines forth.
I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very conflicting works, philosophically), books like the Tao of Programming and The Codeless Code just seem to mask random programming knowledge in a foreign writing style to make it more entertaining.<p>Not saying that what's taught in those books is incorrect or not valuable, but it can sometimes be uncomfortable for people that respect the philosophy.
If you like this, you might like the Tao of Programming:
<a href="http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html</a>