Life in Code

A Personal History of Technology

paperback, 320 pages

Published Aug. 7, 2018 by Picador.

ISBN:
978-1-250-18169-5
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4 stars (13 reviews)

2 editions

reviewed Life in Code by Ellen Ullman

Worthwhile collection

4 stars

This book has an emotional quality which is missing from a lot of critical tech writing. Really worthwhile collection, although the contents are quite varied I expect something here will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Close to the Machine.

The outsider-becomes-insider accounts of the tech world of 1990s San Francisco were probably the sections I enjoyed the most while reading them. The short section of essays on artificial life - including the role of the body in intelligence - are the ones that I'm still thinking about six months later.

Review of 'Life in code' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Schade, aber es ging nicht. Dabei stehen wirklich viele interessante Dinge drin, auch stilistisch mochte ich es sehr, aber es gibt wiederkehrende Themen, die mich schon bei "Close to the Machine" geärgert haben und die hier so aufdringlich sind, dass ich die Lust verloren habe. Das ist zum einen eine sehr unwohlwollende Behandlung aller vorkommenden Personen, vor allem der Männer in ihrem Leben, die attraktiv und klug und gut im Bett sind, aber doch irgendwie subtil ungenügend, unaufmerksam, unreif, unerwachsen. Überhaupt das wirklich in jedem Essay auftauchende Thema "Infantilisierung", alles am Computer wird immer kindischer, bunter, einfacher. Das halte ich für grob vereinfachten Unfug. Alle Texte scheinen mir von der Unzufriedenheit der Autorin mit Veränderungen zu handeln, und dass es sich um eine Unzufriedenheit mit Veränderungen auch nur handeln KÖNNTE, bleibt völlig unreflektiert, was umso ärgerlicher ist, als die Autorin eben eigentlich toll und schlau ist.

Review of 'Life in code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I wrote a review of this book, but took too long and it timed out and goodreads tossed it into the bit bucket. ("Bit bucket" is programmer slang for the mythical location of lost data.) This happened before so I'd learned to write less carefully and post less thoughtful prose. But, not being a computer, I forgot this time and tried to fix my typos and go beyond first draftiness. A better programmer (it's not the computer's fault) would have had the program save my earlier draft so I could recover. Ms. Ullman would understand.

A better programmer would also know that goodreads reviewers probably don't pay a lot of attention to making sure the correct "edition" is chosen and the stats thus generated are bogus. ("Bogus" is another word popular among programmers, or it at least it was long ago when I used to program.) I'm intentionally leaving the …

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