The Bug by Ellen Ullman

Never Rock Fila writes "On the front page of tomorrow's New York Times Book Review, a slightly breathless but overdue enthusiastic review of Ellen Ullman's new novel, The Bug. The review acknowledges that 'Ullman has already established herself as an indispensable voice out of the world of technology' -- if you haven't read her first book, a memoir, Close to the Machine, read that too -- and it's nice to see a mainstream publication like the Times, the gold standard of book reviews as I understand it, giving such prominent and positive attention to a novel by a former 'software engineer' that's all about getting inside the mind of a programmer, even concluding 'If more contemporary novels delivered news this relevant and wise they'd have to stop declaring the death of the novel.' The reviewer, one Benjamin Anastas, has the chops to develop a sustained comparison to Mary Shelley, to legitimately place the 1984 computer programmers at the center of the novel among 'all the best characters in fiction,' and to declare the book 'thrilling and intellectually fearless.'"

Comments

Ullman's Programming the Post-Human

[Drakonian]

If you get a chance, read Ellen Ulman's article Programming the Post-Human - Computer Science redefines life. It was an excellent and realistic look at the current state of AI development. It was found in the October 2002 issue of Harper's Magazine. (I couldn't find an online copy) I'll have to think about picking up this book now, I thought her writing was superb.

Re:Ullman's Programming the Post-Human

[rkz]

She also did some softcore porn while she was in college, I can't find the link right now but it was somewhere on E! online. If you have time look it up, they even had some pics (cencored). Suprising she was not all that hot but an interesting fact nonetheless.

Re:Ullman's Programming the Post-Human

[sl70]

What!? I don't believe it. I went out with her in college and, while I can't guarantee she didn't do porn (I wasn't with her all the time), I seriously doubt it. She always was a serious woman. Sure you're not mixing her up with Tracey Ullman?

Word is it got squashed

[tuluvas]

I hear that the bug got squashed and didn't make the best sellers list! But on a more serious note, that will make a very good read. Im glad someone finaly went to the trouble to write a book about the stuff I do everyday! also maybe it will get programmers some more respect. The sterotype of a pale loser breaking out with zits is getting on my nerves! But oh well I cant say anything about it really, I have not read it yet.

Re:Ellen Ullman Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny. I just heard of Ellen Ullman last night when reading a random blog that linked to "The Dumbing-Down of Programming"

I loved the way she described it all... I was reliving my days back in the dorm, installing slackware for the first time. Highly recommended.

Benjamin Anastas

[Anonymous Coward]

wrote a very funny novella called "An Underachiever's Diary". Highly recommended if you want to read something different from your staple sci-fi/fantasy/computer-book diet.

Next... the Programmer TV Series...

[ivi]

Folks, -any- profession (&/or the workplaces
around it) that has influenced -lots- of
peoples' lives has had TV series about itself.

We've had lots of medicos... from "Ben Casey"
& maybe some before him...

We've had lawyers... from "Perry Mason" &

We've had police from The "Untouchables"...

We've even had teachers & schools (recently
"Boston Public" - which got -cut- in Australia,
soon after a sequence on the use of "Nigger"
(we're not racist down here, we just don't
want to give our people anything too controvertial
to think about...)

Someday (if/when programmers become influential
again (remember when we were -mostly- physicists,
mayhematicians or electronics engineers?),
we might see some TV series on programmers.

Would anybody like to brainstorm up some story-
lines for "The Programmers" that might fit into
a 30-minute slot, each week?

Re:Next... the Programmer TV Series...

[Bodrius]

False.

All the professions that have spawned TV-series of their own are essentially social professions: police, doctors, investigators, lawyers, artists, teachers, reporters, etc. The core of the working-time (as seen in TV) in these cases has to do with interacting with people.

Even the exceptions that have more "technical meat" (CSI and the like) tend to be off-shoots of the typical case. Like a secondary character in a novel that becomes a favorite, but would normally not stand by itself.

This is not about who "influences society". It's about emotions. Emotions move plots more quickly and easily than ideas, and don't have to be explained too much. TV is about simple, approachable, uncomplicated emotions driving simple plots around emotions. The facts are not important unless emotionally charged, or sprinkled at least a little bit.

Face it, computer programming is not the most socially interesting profession. Certainly not the most emotionally charged for an outsider. It's logically, intellectually challenging, which means boring for someone looking for a sit-com instead of a documentary.

People connect to the pathologist's "determination", as he "earnestly" looks for evidence to "catch the evil bastard". They don't connect to a professional obsession for doing the job well. They might as well watch a mechanic work.

Of course, a TV series could be made around a computer programmer, as long as its thematic is about social interaction and not programming. It wouldn't be a show about programmers, though, just like "thirty something" was not a show about architects, and "Drew Carey" is not a show about HR coordinators. The profession will be an uninteresting prop, assumed to happen off the set.

Another choice would be to focus on the weirdness of the social interactions themselves are, as compared with the rest. But people don't want to watch that either, they want to connect to social interactions they're already familiar with, that they can empathize with. The excellent "Freaks and Geeks" was almost exclusively popular with... you guessed it, freaks and geeks. We all know where that one ended.

Re:Next... the Programmer TV Series...

[stanwirth]

Yah! And I can see Scott Adams doing the writing for it.

There was a British series called "Attachments" that actually had some decent programmer content/activity, though it was dominated by dotcom management pratfalls and consequences that we've all seen in real life by now, so why make yourself sick watching it on TV.

What's more interesting is the "junkyard wars" format, with Robot Wars and Robotica. And yet you don't get very good representation of the interesting part -- they're presented like Pro Wrestling.

How do you illustrate the process of problem solving in a visually compelling way? Better yet, how do you engage the viewer intellectually in the process? There's the dramatic twist, the quirky character, the suspense -- but the most engaging it gets, really, is in the whodunit or the spy "thriller". And these are so formulaic, predictable and worn-out by now, that there's just no fun in them.

Science and Techno documentaries are by far the worst-- their Breathless Admiration of The Great Man Of Science and His Great Discovery, or This Wonderful New Technology And How It Will Change Our Lives. How utterly boring.

I wonder if I could get it read by non-programmers

[glaude]

I wonder if I could get it read by non-programmers in my company.
Just in order to make them feel the psycological consequences of them changing their specs two weeks before commercial release...