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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.'"
First Cryptonomicon hits the best-seller lists, now a paper does a favorable review of a novel about a geek.
Either us geeks are buying more books, or the mainstream population is getting brighter. Somehow, I think it's the former. American Idol is still on television.
No. He's talking about Ellen DeGeneres on "When Liberals Attack".
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
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.
Salon.com loves Ellen Ullman almost as much as I do. Read excerpts from The Bug here: http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2003/05/16/ullm an/index_np.html
You can read articles by Ullman here:
http://archive.salon.com/directory/topics/ellen_ul lman/
Salon is free as long as you watch a little commercial (C'mon--its 10 secondds, and then you get to read Ulllman--for free!!!)
"Oh, the tragedy of math gone wrong. I can't even talk about it." -Wil Wheaton http://www.wilwheaton.net
How come everybody always posts these broken links that require registration? Why can't they link to, say, the Google partner URL or some such? Is this some kind of unwritten rule? Or do the Slashdot editors make sure to find the registration-required URLs? I always see replies with "no reg link", etc. Why don't the original authors use these?
"...and it's nice to see a mainstream publication like the Times, the gold standard of book reviews as I understand it..."
I thought Oprah's book club was?
Finished this a few weeks ago after reading the sample of it Salon had posted. A very solid book, and the technical stuff was pretty solid as far as compiler interaction and such. It doesn't paint a rosey picture of life as a programmer though, and made me glad I got out of CSCI when I did...
Computer Science Crime Investigations?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
FYI, Palm Digital Media has Ms. Ullman's tome available for the Palm Reader.
I've read the review, it suck. Here it is
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Thanks for review NYTimes. Here's one book I won't buy : it's all about internet junk !
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
A little offtopic, but I'd like to see book links point to somewhere else, like Barnes & Noble. After all the coverage on /. of the amazon.com patents I thought this would have been obvious. Let's not support software patents and shop somewhere else instead. Here are the B&N links:
The Bug
Close to the Machine
Developers: We can use your help.
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...
Let me put it this way: this book literally made me fear for my own sanity. Now, if that's not a good endorsement, I don't know what is.
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