I’ve always had a thing for computers. Ever since that morning in–what was it? 2nd grade?–that my class trooped down to the library to get a look at the (probably) brand-spanking new Apple IIes. (I remember staring at the poster of the (re)boot and thinking, “Huh?” I was a very literal-minded child.) Hey, I mean, it was like television–which I loved, except for M*A*S*H, which I hated–only you could make it show you anything you wanted! My fate was sealed. I’ve been a computer-junky ever since. (Maybe this is why I don’t really watch television anymore? The computer got pretty enough to replace it?)
The funny thing is, though, in spite of my technophilia, I’ve never really been that interested in the programming end of things. Oh, I’ve tried. There was a time when I tinkered around on my trusty Commodore 64, trying my best to write a decent text adventure game. I took a computer programming class in high school, which was a joke, because it was filled with “computer geeks”, who already had it down pat, and complete computer illiterates. There wasn’t really a place for a dilletante like myself. I mean, to give you an idea, for our final we watched a Moody Blues documentary.
In college, I tried again, with a C++ class for one of my math requirements. Which is about the grade that I got in the class. Again, it was a class filled with kids who already got it, who had been doing C++ for years, probably. I did my best, but there was a conceptual chasm that I just couldn’t bridge. I just didn’t get it, after a certain point. I remember having a conversation with the prof about computerized random number generators. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out why my random number generator program kept generating the EXACT SAME NUMBER every single time. When he explained, with some exasperation, that computers didn’t actually generate random numbers, but only simulated it, I didn’t know what to say. I still didn’t really understand what he was talking about.
So, last month, when I read The Bug by Ellen Ullman, certain things clicked into place. It helped me to think about programming in a way that I hadn’t quite thought of before. It helps that one of the narrators, Roberta, is an English major turned (reluctant) programmer.
The story is set in the early 1980s. A software company is designing a graphical interface for their spreadsheet software. Berta, who works a s a tester, encounters a bug in the software that crashes everything, but that no one can reliably replicated. Ethan is the programmer whose life crumbles around him as he fails to find the cause of this computer glitch. Berta is instructed to learn C, in order to assist in finding the bug, and, in spite of herself, becomes mesmerized by the structure and beauty of computer code. It’s a stunning piece of writing.
The other part of the story describes Ethan’s slow death spiral into oblivion. A cautionary tale about the dangers of obsession and monomania.
In short, well worth it.
The book even got written up on Slashdot!
It’s funny. The interviews with Ellen Ullman tend to focus almost exclusively on her as computer programmer, with very little focus on the book itself, as you can see here and here.
This feels like a place for one of my comments that struggles to break out of the little comment box and find a place of its own over on my site. However, since I’ve been unable to concentrate on anything focused over there, i’m gonna go ahead and start saying nothing here and come to the conclusion that I actually have nothing to say.
(Basically you’ve motivated me to briefly map out my own computer-related-biography, but for now I’m going to resist that cuz otherwise I’ll be three words in and quit when something comes up.)
Briefly, then, I’ve had a very reluctant relationship with computers since college. Prior to that (the story I’m resisting telling just now) I was semi-obsessed, and did some programming on my own, but never anything that amounted to much. In college, though, I majored in computers and it quickly became this JOB kind of thing instead of a hobby. So it took a long time, after college, for me to drift back to the programming side of things. What I realized in there, though, is that in a way when I say “I hate computers,” I mean it. They frustrate the hell out of me.
I couldn’t live without these things, at least not the way I do. I make my living programming them, I spend most of my free time using them for something-or-other; yet they sometimes feel like this deep DRAIN that all of my energy runs into, coming out somewhere on the other side, never to be seen again.
(And here’s the point where I get to the part where I accept, head hung low, that I indeed have no energy for this writing thing just now, and, besides, I’ve got no place to go with whatever I’m writing here. Sounds like a good book, though, and I hope someday to remember to remind myself to think about looking for it.)
i understand about the DRAIN…
i sometimes wonder what compels me to write a bunch of nothings and paste them up online.
and then i wonder: what compels millions and millions of people to paste things up online?
i’d probably not enjoy computers so much if i had to program the things for a living.
as for the writing, well, that seems to have been at the wayside for a while now.
I’ve been recently thinking a lot of lots about what it is that drives my blogging. Or really I’ve been thinking about what the primary cause is; there are a lot of things that get me wanting to do it, but it seems more and more clear recently that the driving force has something to do with community. These little conversations about things that are interesting to me with people I stumble upon who have weird things in common with me.
It’s neat-o, is what it is.
(Okay, I’m still in la-la land, apparently. Moving along…)