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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.'"
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.
Random is the New Order.
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.
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.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...