The Jargon File, bless it, says:
Also, many hackers are influenced to varying degrees by Zen Buddhism or (less commonly) Taoism, and blend them easily with their `native' religions.
There's certainly a lot of Zen, and other Buddhist, influence in the computer programming world. (AI koans, "has the X nature"*, and so on.) I want to try to work out why, where it came from, who the vectors were and still are, how much of the appeal of Buddhism is playful and how much serious, and so on.
If you have any tips, please mail me, or, if you must, leave stuff in the comments. Any ideas would be appreciated, and even more so if you would (a) be prepared to take part in a survey, and/or (b) have some quotable references for me.
*: Apart from X. X doesn't have the X nature.Full version - 5 Comments