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Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents
With a New Introduction by Jaron Lanier
A Salon Best Book of the Year
In 1997, the computer was still a relatively new tool---a sleek and unforgiving machine that was beyond the grasp of most users. With intimate and unflinching detail, software engineer Ellen Ullman examines the strange ecstasy of being at the forefront of the predominantly male technological revolution, and the difficulty of translating the inherent messiness of human life into artful and efficient code. Close to the Machine is an elegant and revelatory mediation on the dawn of the digital era.
A Salon Best Book of the Year
In 1997, the computer was still a relatively new tool---a sleek and unforgiving machine that was beyond the grasp of most users. With intimate and unflinching detail, software engineer Ellen Ullman examines the strange ecstasy of being at the forefront of the predominantly male technological revolution, and the difficulty of translating the inherent messiness of human life into artful and efficient code. Close to the Machine is an elegant and revelatory mediation on the dawn of the digital era.
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Ellen Ullman
10 books180 followersEllen Ullman is the author of By Blood, The Bug, a New York Times Notable Book and runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the cult classic memoir Close to the Machine, based on her years as a rare female computer programmer in the early years of the personal computer era. She lives in San Francisco.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ellenu...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ellenu...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
March 2, 2015
This is less like a Jaron Lanier manifesto or a Kevin Kelly treatise or Neal Stephenson's uber-nerdy Linux book than a well-written personal memoir by a woman who happened to be a computer programmer. (I bet some technogeeks were horrified by Ullman's honest accounts of her sex life - "why the hell is she telling me this?" Ha.)
The book is dated, of course, but I see many reasons it has stayed in print (even before all the recent acclaim for By Blood if I'm not mistaken), despite the similarity in tone and subject to her first novel, The Bug. (I gave that book 4 stars also.)
Learned a new word: When Ullman used the term "cypherpunk" I assumed she meant cyberpunk and for some reason didn't want to use Gibson's neologism. Apparently I haven't paid enough attention to the Julian Assange case and didn't know the term, because it turns out her use was intentional (acc to Wikipedia): an activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography as a route to social and political change.
My favorite part of the book was the chapter on being an independent contractor and a "virtual" worker (i.e., working from home). I have never seen it said so correctly. Ullman nails this so well; I have to quote at length:
The book is dated, of course, but I see many reasons it has stayed in print (even before all the recent acclaim for By Blood if I'm not mistaken), despite the similarity in tone and subject to her first novel, The Bug. (I gave that book 4 stars also.)
Learned a new word: When Ullman used the term "cypherpunk" I assumed she meant cyberpunk and for some reason didn't want to use Gibson's neologism. Apparently I haven't paid enough attention to the Julian Assange case and didn't know the term, because it turns out her use was intentional (acc to Wikipedia): an activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography as a route to social and political change.
My favorite part of the book was the chapter on being an independent contractor and a "virtual" worker (i.e., working from home). I have never seen it said so correctly. Ullman nails this so well; I have to quote at length:
My work hours have leaked into all parts of the day and week. Eight in the morning, ten at night, Saturday at noon, Sundays: I am never not working. Even when I'm not actually doing something that could be called work, I might get started any minute. So everything is an interruption -- a call from a friend, an invitation to lunch -- everything must be refused because it is possible that from one moment to the next I will get back to something.So true.
Delivery guys love us: We're the new housewives. We're always home.....but likely sleeping when UPS knocks on the door ....
In the afternoons, I see us virtuals emerge blinking into the sunlight. In the dead hours after 3 P.M., we haunt cafés and local restaurants. We run into each other at the FedEx drop-box or the copy shop. They, like me, have a freshly laundered look, just come out of pajamas or sweat pants, just showered and dressed.Ouch. Yep.
I recognize my virtual colleagues by their overattention to little interactions with waiters and cashiers, a supersensitivity that has come from too much time spent alone. We've been in a machine-mediated world -- computers and e-mail, phones and faxes -- and suddenly we're in a world where people lumber up and down the steps of buses, walk in and out of stores, have actual in-person conversations. All this has been going on while I was in another universe: that's what comes to us with a force like the too-bright sun or a stiff wind off the bay. We do our business, drop off the overnight packet, clip together the xeroxes, and hurry home.That really captures the surreality of living and working this way. A little out of step, out of sync with the rest of you. Feeling strangely fragile when we rejoin the world ...
August 27, 2012
Ellen Ullman perfectly describes how a programmer relates to the world in this book. That's not to say only programmers should read this. Instead, I recommend non-programmers who ever have to work with programmers read this book because it describes why we're always cranky: half the time, nothing is working and the other half, we have no idea what we're doing.
She writes:
The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.
The short version:
That said, although most of what Ullman describes rings true, there are some things I can't relate with because I was never a programmer in the 80s or even 90s and I never worked in a really corporate atmosphere. While she found that working as a contractor or consultant and not a "real" employee made her feel isolated, I wonder if this was a time before instant-messaging, Skype, and all the myriad of ways to real-time contact with remote-coworkers.
I definitely enjoyed the chapters about her work life more than the chapters of her love-life. I know this is probably supposed to be more like a memoir, but I found the chapters about Brian to be dull and wished she would just get over him. Also, there was by far, the least erotic sex-scene ever early on in this book, just a warning!
She writes:
The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.
The short version:
That said, although most of what Ullman describes rings true, there are some things I can't relate with because I was never a programmer in the 80s or even 90s and I never worked in a really corporate atmosphere. While she found that working as a contractor or consultant and not a "real" employee made her feel isolated, I wonder if this was a time before instant-messaging, Skype, and all the myriad of ways to real-time contact with remote-coworkers.
I definitely enjoyed the chapters about her work life more than the chapters of her love-life. I know this is probably supposed to be more like a memoir, but I found the chapters about Brian to be dull and wished she would just get over him. Also, there was by far, the least erotic sex-scene ever early on in this book, just a warning!
August 29, 2023
О Х У Е Т Ь
Злюще, с оскалом, и не постарело ни на день за четверть века.
Злюще, с оскалом, и не постарело ни на день за четверть века.
September 28, 2022
I discovered this book a few years back. It was about how Silicon Valley looked like to a person who worked at the ground level. This was probably one of the first books to describe this. I finally got around to reading it.
In the book, Ellen Ullman describes her experiences working as a programmer in Silicon Valley. Most of the book is set in the middle and late 1990s at the dawn of the Internet era. But Ullman also goes back in time and describes her experiences in the '80s and the '70s, and we get a ringside view of how technology and how computer culture evolved.
If you have worked in the tech industry in any capacity, but particularly as a computer programmer (I don't know exactly what this is called these days. From 'computer programmer' it became 'software engineer', and it used to be called derisively as 'coder' by non-technical people in the tech industry. These days it is probably called 'App developer', but I'm not sure.), you'll be able to relate to most of the things described in the book. I could. Some parts of the book made me smile, and nod in acknowledgement, while others triggered some unpleasant memories.
My favourite chapter in the book was called 'New, Old, and Middle Age'. It is about how software technology keeps changing rapidly and how it is hard to keep up, and at some point a person gives up. It happens to everyone, and it happened to me. I still remember the heady early days, when I sat with two of my teammates while we analyzed and debugged a program and I identified the main source of a particular nasty problem and my teammates looked at me with admiration. Years later, one of my teammates taught me a new technology and asked me to hold the fort while he was away for a day, and when a customer came up with a simple request, I couldn't handle that. That simple thing was beyond me. I knew that day that my programming days were over, and that the technology had changed to a point where I couldn't keep up with it, and I had become obsolete as a programmer. When I read a whole chapter about it in the book, it made me smile.
I went into the tech industry because I loved programming, and I thought I'll be on a high all the time, because I'll be working on computer programs all the time. But reality didn't turn out that way. There were meetings and interruptions and phone calls and this and that, and in addition to that one had to deal with the contempt that non-technical employees had for programmers, and soon, at some point, all the romance went out of the work, and I pottered around like a zombie and tried to get through the day. Ellen Ullman talks about all this in the book when she describes how when a new project starts, everyone is enthusiastic and positive, but before long things go awry, and it all goes to hell after that.
There are many other interesting things, fascinating things that Ellen Ullman talks about in the book. I'll let you read the book yourself and experience its pleasures.
I loved Ellen Ullman's book. As one of the first books on this theme, it is pioneering and fascinating. I wish I had read it when I was younger.
I'll leave you with two of my favourite parts from the book. Hope you like them.
Part 1
"I once worked on a mainframe computer system where the fan-folded listing of my COBOL program stood as high as a person. My program was sixteen years old when I inherited it. According to the library logs, ninety-six programmers had worked on it before I had. I spent a year wandering its subroutines and service modules, but there were still mysterious places I did not dare touch. There were bugs on this system no one had been able to fix for ten years. There were sections where adding a single line of code created odd and puzzling outcomes programmers call "side effects": bugs that come not directly from the added code but from some later, known permutation further down in the process. My program was near the end of its "life cycle." It was close to death.
Yet the system could not be thrown away. By the time a computer system becomes old, no one completely understands it. A system made out of old junky technology becomes, paradoxically, precious. It is kept running but as if in a velvet box : open it carefully, just look, don't touch.
The preciousness of an old system is axiomatic. The longer the system has been running, the greater the number of programmers who have worked on it, the less any one person understands it. As years pass and untold numbers of programmers and analysts come and go, the system takes on a life of its own. It runs. That is its claim to existence : it does useful work. However badly, however buggy, however obsolete – it runs. And no one individual completely understands how. Its very functioning demands we stop treating it as some mechanism we've created like, say, a toaster, and start to recognize it as a being with a life of its own. We have little choice anyway : we no longer control it. We have two choices: respect it or kill it.
Old systems have a name. They are called "legacy systems." In the regular world, "legacy" has an aura of beneficence, Parents leave a child a legacy : fortunate child. A brother gets into a fraternity because of his older brother's earlier membership : a legacy admission. A gift. An enrichment. The patina of age, but good age-venerability, the passing on from generation to generation. A gift of time.
In computing, however, "legacy" is a curse. A legacy system is a lingering piece of old junk that no one has yet figured out how to throw away. It's something to be lived with and suffered. The system is unmodifiable, full of bugs, no longer understood. We say it's "brain dead." Yet it lives. Yet it runs. Drain on our time and money. Vampire of our happiness. Legacy."
Part 2
"I've managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility. This humility is as mandatory as arrogance. Knowing an IBM mainframe – knowing it as you would a person, with all its good qualities and deficiencies, knowledge gained in years of slow anxious probing – is no use at all when you sit down for the first time in front of a UNIX machine. It is sobering to be a senior programmer and not know how to log on.
There is only one way to deal with this humiliation : bow your head, let go of the idea that you know anything, and ask politely of this new machine, "How do you wish to be operated?" If you accept your ignorance, if you really admit to yourself that everything you know is now useless, the new machine will be good to you and tell here is how to operate me.
Once it tells you, your single days are over. You are involved again. Now you can be arrogant again. Now you must be arrogant : you must believe you can come to know this new place as well as the old – no, better. You must now dedicate yourself to that deep slow probing, that patience and frustration, the anxious intimacy of a new technical relationship. You must give yourself over wholly to this : you must believe this is your last lover."
Have you read 'Close to the Machine : Technophilia and its Discontents'? What do you think about it?
In the book, Ellen Ullman describes her experiences working as a programmer in Silicon Valley. Most of the book is set in the middle and late 1990s at the dawn of the Internet era. But Ullman also goes back in time and describes her experiences in the '80s and the '70s, and we get a ringside view of how technology and how computer culture evolved.
If you have worked in the tech industry in any capacity, but particularly as a computer programmer (I don't know exactly what this is called these days. From 'computer programmer' it became 'software engineer', and it used to be called derisively as 'coder' by non-technical people in the tech industry. These days it is probably called 'App developer', but I'm not sure.), you'll be able to relate to most of the things described in the book. I could. Some parts of the book made me smile, and nod in acknowledgement, while others triggered some unpleasant memories.
My favourite chapter in the book was called 'New, Old, and Middle Age'. It is about how software technology keeps changing rapidly and how it is hard to keep up, and at some point a person gives up. It happens to everyone, and it happened to me. I still remember the heady early days, when I sat with two of my teammates while we analyzed and debugged a program and I identified the main source of a particular nasty problem and my teammates looked at me with admiration. Years later, one of my teammates taught me a new technology and asked me to hold the fort while he was away for a day, and when a customer came up with a simple request, I couldn't handle that. That simple thing was beyond me. I knew that day that my programming days were over, and that the technology had changed to a point where I couldn't keep up with it, and I had become obsolete as a programmer. When I read a whole chapter about it in the book, it made me smile.
I went into the tech industry because I loved programming, and I thought I'll be on a high all the time, because I'll be working on computer programs all the time. But reality didn't turn out that way. There were meetings and interruptions and phone calls and this and that, and in addition to that one had to deal with the contempt that non-technical employees had for programmers, and soon, at some point, all the romance went out of the work, and I pottered around like a zombie and tried to get through the day. Ellen Ullman talks about all this in the book when she describes how when a new project starts, everyone is enthusiastic and positive, but before long things go awry, and it all goes to hell after that.
There are many other interesting things, fascinating things that Ellen Ullman talks about in the book. I'll let you read the book yourself and experience its pleasures.
I loved Ellen Ullman's book. As one of the first books on this theme, it is pioneering and fascinating. I wish I had read it when I was younger.
I'll leave you with two of my favourite parts from the book. Hope you like them.
Part 1
"I once worked on a mainframe computer system where the fan-folded listing of my COBOL program stood as high as a person. My program was sixteen years old when I inherited it. According to the library logs, ninety-six programmers had worked on it before I had. I spent a year wandering its subroutines and service modules, but there were still mysterious places I did not dare touch. There were bugs on this system no one had been able to fix for ten years. There were sections where adding a single line of code created odd and puzzling outcomes programmers call "side effects": bugs that come not directly from the added code but from some later, known permutation further down in the process. My program was near the end of its "life cycle." It was close to death.
Yet the system could not be thrown away. By the time a computer system becomes old, no one completely understands it. A system made out of old junky technology becomes, paradoxically, precious. It is kept running but as if in a velvet box : open it carefully, just look, don't touch.
The preciousness of an old system is axiomatic. The longer the system has been running, the greater the number of programmers who have worked on it, the less any one person understands it. As years pass and untold numbers of programmers and analysts come and go, the system takes on a life of its own. It runs. That is its claim to existence : it does useful work. However badly, however buggy, however obsolete – it runs. And no one individual completely understands how. Its very functioning demands we stop treating it as some mechanism we've created like, say, a toaster, and start to recognize it as a being with a life of its own. We have little choice anyway : we no longer control it. We have two choices: respect it or kill it.
Old systems have a name. They are called "legacy systems." In the regular world, "legacy" has an aura of beneficence, Parents leave a child a legacy : fortunate child. A brother gets into a fraternity because of his older brother's earlier membership : a legacy admission. A gift. An enrichment. The patina of age, but good age-venerability, the passing on from generation to generation. A gift of time.
In computing, however, "legacy" is a curse. A legacy system is a lingering piece of old junk that no one has yet figured out how to throw away. It's something to be lived with and suffered. The system is unmodifiable, full of bugs, no longer understood. We say it's "brain dead." Yet it lives. Yet it runs. Drain on our time and money. Vampire of our happiness. Legacy."
Part 2
"I've managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility. This humility is as mandatory as arrogance. Knowing an IBM mainframe – knowing it as you would a person, with all its good qualities and deficiencies, knowledge gained in years of slow anxious probing – is no use at all when you sit down for the first time in front of a UNIX machine. It is sobering to be a senior programmer and not know how to log on.
There is only one way to deal with this humiliation : bow your head, let go of the idea that you know anything, and ask politely of this new machine, "How do you wish to be operated?" If you accept your ignorance, if you really admit to yourself that everything you know is now useless, the new machine will be good to you and tell here is how to operate me.
Once it tells you, your single days are over. You are involved again. Now you can be arrogant again. Now you must be arrogant : you must believe you can come to know this new place as well as the old – no, better. You must now dedicate yourself to that deep slow probing, that patience and frustration, the anxious intimacy of a new technical relationship. You must give yourself over wholly to this : you must believe this is your last lover."
Have you read 'Close to the Machine : Technophilia and its Discontents'? What do you think about it?
August 31, 2012
This was pretty enjoyable overall. I agree with Louise that the bits about her sex life were a bit irrelevant (at best), and kind of gross (at worst), but I guess that's one way to try to make a book about programming more interesting.
It was a quick read. I'm not sure why it was reissued now; while most of the content seems to be from the original 1997 printing, it does seem like some of the footnotes are newer.
It was a quick read. I'm not sure why it was reissued now; while most of the content seems to be from the original 1997 printing, it does seem like some of the footnotes are newer.
October 21, 2013
I was expecting something quite different from this book. Not knowing much about Ellen Ullman and going simply from the blurbs, I thought this would be the kind of optimistic corporate memoir that sets a person up nicely for a career as a management consultant or a high-powered executive role. (I have no idea why I thought this; I guess I don’t actually read a lot of this kind of thing?) But it was a pleasant surprise to find that this is pretty much the polar opposite: a highly personal, wide-ranging and often quite abstract account of what it was like to be working with complex systems at a particularly interesting time for computer stuff.
There are specifics – names, places, projects – but it seems to me that the author is more interested in what she (and those she worked with) had in common with the changing priorities of the time than in simply retelling old war stories. In his typically rambling, effusive style, Jaron Lanier provides an introduction to this edition in which he describes it as a book which ‘records what it felt like when humans were engulfed by artificial computation...a bridge between reality at large and the empire of nerds, which seemed nonreactive and immune to subjectivity, beauty, love, or the acknowledgement of fundamental frailty…’ That���s as good a description as any. Or to put it a little more cynically, it’s the kind of book you write when you’re leaving the IT industry and starting out as a really serious Writer.
Of all the specific people mentioned in this book, it’s Brian who emerges as the most intriguing personality. At first it seems like he’s just another hip young gunslinger of the nerd world – ‘In appearing to be a genius on a skateboard, he couldn’t be playing his part any better’ – and in the author’s mind, he’s the template for a thousand other ambitious young men nursing their strange anxieties and grand idealism. Brian wants to set up an entirely anonymous electronic banking system, one which respects the privacy and security of banks and customers. That’s total anonymity - on both sides.
As the author herself points out, the only problem with this is that ultimately nobody will know how much money anyone else has. Brian’s flustered response – ‘...you’re responsible for keeping your own idea of your money...’ – is perfect. It’s completely baffling, and yet it contains a weird nugget of truth: what is money if not a series of conflicting ideas based on necessarily incomplete information?
If we were still reading this in 1997, Brian’s story could be dismissed as another pleasant parable about how people locked into certain ways of working can never fully understand the complexities of the real world. But the Brians never really went away. One could argue that we just started moving them around. I can picture a Brian arguing for the perfect securitisation of financial risk through computerised trading, for example, or the virtues of a unique digital currency which is exchanged online and operated independent of government controls. Such things are no longer the idle fantasies of those dreaming boys with their skateboards and floppy fringes. And that’s what makes this book all the more important.
It’s a really great book. I feel like I haven’t stressed that enough. Really well written, with a lovely balance between the cold technical facts of her work alongside the nuance of what it actually felt like to be doing this stuff. I marked more passages that I could hope to quote here, but there are some images that lingered in my mind long after I’d finished flicking through the (digital!) pages of my edition. I loved the idea of the author and her boss sitting amongst the ruins of their hollowed-out office after the rest of the staff had been laid off; the only traces of them being the dangling network cables and hollow sockets where their workstations and cubicles once sat. I loved the stories about working on a COBOL program for a mainframe computer which was sixteen years old when the author ‘inherited’ it from a a total of ninety-six other programmers who’d worked on it over the years – the fan-folded printed listing stood as high as a person.
But I want to quote this bit because I do think it is perhaps the most important lesson of this book:
‘I’d like to think that computers are neutral, a tool like any other, a hammer that can build a house or smash a skull. But there is something in the system itself, in the formal logic of programs and data, that recreates the world in its own image. Like the rock-and-roll culture, it forms an irresistible horizontal country that obliterates the long, slow, old cultures of place and custom, law and social life. We think we are creating the system for our own purposes. We believe we are making it in our own image...But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. It is as if we took the game of chess and declared it the highest order of human existence.
‘We place this small projection of ourselves all around us, and we make ourselves reliant on it. To keep information, buy gas, save money, write a letter – we can’t live without it any longer. The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. We conform to the range of motion the system allows. We must be more orderly, more logical. Answer the question, Yes or No, OK or Cancel.’
There are specifics – names, places, projects – but it seems to me that the author is more interested in what she (and those she worked with) had in common with the changing priorities of the time than in simply retelling old war stories. In his typically rambling, effusive style, Jaron Lanier provides an introduction to this edition in which he describes it as a book which ‘records what it felt like when humans were engulfed by artificial computation...a bridge between reality at large and the empire of nerds, which seemed nonreactive and immune to subjectivity, beauty, love, or the acknowledgement of fundamental frailty…’ That���s as good a description as any. Or to put it a little more cynically, it’s the kind of book you write when you’re leaving the IT industry and starting out as a really serious Writer.
Of all the specific people mentioned in this book, it’s Brian who emerges as the most intriguing personality. At first it seems like he’s just another hip young gunslinger of the nerd world – ‘In appearing to be a genius on a skateboard, he couldn’t be playing his part any better’ – and in the author’s mind, he’s the template for a thousand other ambitious young men nursing their strange anxieties and grand idealism. Brian wants to set up an entirely anonymous electronic banking system, one which respects the privacy and security of banks and customers. That’s total anonymity - on both sides.
As the author herself points out, the only problem with this is that ultimately nobody will know how much money anyone else has. Brian’s flustered response – ‘...you’re responsible for keeping your own idea of your money...’ – is perfect. It’s completely baffling, and yet it contains a weird nugget of truth: what is money if not a series of conflicting ideas based on necessarily incomplete information?
If we were still reading this in 1997, Brian’s story could be dismissed as another pleasant parable about how people locked into certain ways of working can never fully understand the complexities of the real world. But the Brians never really went away. One could argue that we just started moving them around. I can picture a Brian arguing for the perfect securitisation of financial risk through computerised trading, for example, or the virtues of a unique digital currency which is exchanged online and operated independent of government controls. Such things are no longer the idle fantasies of those dreaming boys with their skateboards and floppy fringes. And that’s what makes this book all the more important.
It’s a really great book. I feel like I haven’t stressed that enough. Really well written, with a lovely balance between the cold technical facts of her work alongside the nuance of what it actually felt like to be doing this stuff. I marked more passages that I could hope to quote here, but there are some images that lingered in my mind long after I’d finished flicking through the (digital!) pages of my edition. I loved the idea of the author and her boss sitting amongst the ruins of their hollowed-out office after the rest of the staff had been laid off; the only traces of them being the dangling network cables and hollow sockets where their workstations and cubicles once sat. I loved the stories about working on a COBOL program for a mainframe computer which was sixteen years old when the author ‘inherited’ it from a a total of ninety-six other programmers who’d worked on it over the years – the fan-folded printed listing stood as high as a person.
But I want to quote this bit because I do think it is perhaps the most important lesson of this book:
‘I’d like to think that computers are neutral, a tool like any other, a hammer that can build a house or smash a skull. But there is something in the system itself, in the formal logic of programs and data, that recreates the world in its own image. Like the rock-and-roll culture, it forms an irresistible horizontal country that obliterates the long, slow, old cultures of place and custom, law and social life. We think we are creating the system for our own purposes. We believe we are making it in our own image...But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. It is as if we took the game of chess and declared it the highest order of human existence.
‘We place this small projection of ourselves all around us, and we make ourselves reliant on it. To keep information, buy gas, save money, write a letter – we can’t live without it any longer. The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. We conform to the range of motion the system allows. We must be more orderly, more logical. Answer the question, Yes or No, OK or Cancel.’
April 7, 2019
In "Close to the Machine", Ellen Ullman writes about what it was like to be a software engineer/consultant in the 90's. But I think this is really a book about relationships: our relationships with people and our relationships with machines in the modern age. In many ways, her relationships with software projects mirrored her relationships with the people in her life. Or maybe it's the other way around. Regardless, as an old software engineer who started working in the 80's, I really enjoyed this book. The thing I love about it most is that the author didn't approach this book from a purely technical point of view. Instead it is human and full of life. It explores where technology collides with human beings in all our messiness.
Given that this book was written in the late 90's, I found it to be prescient in how she describes the role of the machine in our lives. She writes: "In a sense, we virtual workers are everyone's future. . . . We lead machine-centered lives; now everyone's life is full of automated tellers, portable phones, pagers, keyboards, mice." How true this is today. Further: "We are all hooked on the global network now, I tell myself, hooked to it and hooked on it. The new drug: the instant, the now, the worldwide." Even more so.
The problem with our relationship with machines is that we, the creators of these machines, have become their servant. We can't live without them. She writes: "I'd like to think that computers are neutral, a tool like any other . . . But there is something in the system itself, in the formal logic of programs and data, that recreates the world in its own image . . . We believe we are making it in our own image . . . But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. . . . We place this small projection of ourselves all around us, and we make ourselves reliant on it. . . . The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. We conform to the range of motion the system allows."
I myself am proof of this. When I finished this book, I thought to myself "F*ck! Now I have to write a review of it on Goodreads." I'm thankful that I bought a physical copy of this book, because if I had read it on my Kindle, I would be getting spammed by Amazon, asking me to write a review. Who is the master and who is the slave in that equation?
I don't know if this book will appeal to all people or even old software engineers like me. But I loved this book. Ellen Ullman is a very good and insightful write. So I highly recommend this one.
Given that this book was written in the late 90's, I found it to be prescient in how she describes the role of the machine in our lives. She writes: "In a sense, we virtual workers are everyone's future. . . . We lead machine-centered lives; now everyone's life is full of automated tellers, portable phones, pagers, keyboards, mice." How true this is today. Further: "We are all hooked on the global network now, I tell myself, hooked to it and hooked on it. The new drug: the instant, the now, the worldwide." Even more so.
The problem with our relationship with machines is that we, the creators of these machines, have become their servant. We can't live without them. She writes: "I'd like to think that computers are neutral, a tool like any other . . . But there is something in the system itself, in the formal logic of programs and data, that recreates the world in its own image . . . We believe we are making it in our own image . . . But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. . . . We place this small projection of ourselves all around us, and we make ourselves reliant on it. . . . The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. We conform to the range of motion the system allows."
I myself am proof of this. When I finished this book, I thought to myself "F*ck! Now I have to write a review of it on Goodreads." I'm thankful that I bought a physical copy of this book, because if I had read it on my Kindle, I would be getting spammed by Amazon, asking me to write a review. Who is the master and who is the slave in that equation?
I don't know if this book will appeal to all people or even old software engineers like me. But I loved this book. Ellen Ullman is a very good and insightful write. So I highly recommend this one.
May 28, 2023
I love Ullman's writing, and I especially love her willingness to acknowledge the flaws in who and what she loves. Reading her reflections on the craft of programming is a delight.
My favourites from this collection: "Transactions", "Software and Suburbia", and "Virtuality".
But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. It is as if we took the game of chess and declared it the highest order of human existence. … The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. … We think we are creating the system, but the system is also creating us.
My favourites from this collection: "Transactions", "Software and Suburbia", and "Virtuality".
But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. It is as if we took the game of chess and declared it the highest order of human existence. … The only problem is this: the more we surround ourselves with a narrowed notion of existence, the more narrow existence becomes. … We think we are creating the system, but the system is also creating us.
August 5, 2022
Tempo fa, nel centro di calcolo dell’ente in cui lavoro mi capitava di entrare attraverso una porta a vetri in una sala n cui c’erano vari personaggi ciascuno ingrugnato davanti al proprio computer, per i quali anche solo alzare la testa e rispondere a una domanda - cosa che generalmente facevano a monosillabi - sembrava costare uno sforzo immane. Erano programmatori e sviluppatori, peraltro dipendenti di qualche ditta esterna, che erano lì per lavorare a non so cosa.
Poi, tornato in ufficio, scherzavo (ma non era poi troppo uno scherzo) con una collega, dicendo che quelli, ci piacesse o no, erano i veri padroni del mondo, e noi eravamo nelle loro mani; gli unici a possedere la conoscenza profonda dei computer, gli unici in grado di capirli e dialogare con loro.
Questo libro, del 1997, parla proprio di quel mondo, e lo fa benissimo. La Ullman è infatti una programmatrice, che ha vissuto e lavorato nella Silicon Valley proprio negli anni dell’esplosione dell’informatica e delle reti, scrivendone peraltro con grande proprietà e qualità. Sono moltissimi gli spunti di riflessione suscitati dalla sua lettura: la fine della vecchia economia, quella di Wall Street e delle grandi imprese, e la nascita di un mondo economico liquido in cui ciascuno è un imprenditore di sé stesso e non esiste più nessun rapporto aziendale (paradossalmente, la proposta di un lavoro dipendente viene guardata con sospetto dai giovani informatici timorosi di perdere la propria libertà); la creazione di relazioni basati sulla comune professionalità, fortissime e emotivamente importanti finché durano (e durano giusto il tempo di concludere un progetto); la consapevolezza che quello che si sa è estremamente aleatorio, l’umiltà di doversi mettere a reimparare tutto da capo a scadenze ravvicinatissime e nello stesso tempo la paura costante di non riuscirci, non farcela ad arrivare alla fine dei progetti (paura che, a modo suo, è pure inebriante); il non fare più distinzione tra giorno e notte, tra tempo lavorato e tempo libero; il fare, ovviamente, soldi come se piovesse e magari trovarsi milionari da un giorno all’altro grazie alle stock options; lo stare ciascuno nella propria casa davanti al proprio computer con il totale annullamento di qualsiasi dimensione sociale, a parte gli occasionali incontri con i propri collaboratori, qualche cena più o meno rituale e qualche momento sessuale sotto l’insegna del poliamore; la prospettiva che qualsiasi cosa sarebbe stata virtualizzata, compreso il sistema bancario, monetario e delle transazioni economiche (qualcuno ha detto bitcoin?); la riduzione del pensiero e del ragionamento alla logica del computer, a modo suo rassicurante anche se ferocemente limitante, e la consapevolezza di aver fatto qualcosa di vero e di sensato solo nel momento in cui il programma su cui stai lavorando gira senza intoppi (nel mio piccolo ho imparato ciò che questo significa con qualche rudimento di Visual Basic); il pericolo per la privacy nel momento in cui le varie basi di dati vengono messe in collegamento tra di loro, cosa che qualsiasi cliente prima o poi ti chiederà; la produzione dei contenuti da parte degli utenti, che produrrà la loro svalutazione a favore del mezzo che li trasporta e li distribuisce; la selezione della conoscenza operata dai motori di ricerca.
La Ullman descrive con grande proprietà un mondo che conosce bene, oltre tutto con la capacità di vedere quello che il futuro avrebbe riservato da lì a pochi anni su scala globale e che, viasto da qui (dal nostro tempo, intendo) sembra incredibile potesse essere preconizzato quando ancora si marciava su interfacce a caratteri e linee ISDN. Peraltro, dopo aver finito di leggere il libro ho cercato qualche notizia su di lei, e mi è venuto il sospetto che esso sia meno autobiografico di quanto sembri. Nel libro molto spazio è dedicato al padre, un eroe della “old economy”, un ebreo immigrato a New York che dal nulla mette in piedi una società commerciale che gli permette di fare i soldi (non moltissimi ma abbastanza per comprare un palazzo dalle parti di Wall Street, zona che poi finirà rovinata proprio dalla “new economy” e dalla smaterializzazione di tutto lo smaterializzabile, compresi i negozi dove un tempo agenti di borsa e banchieri andavano a fare acquisti). La Ullman, dalle poche notizie su di lei reperite in rete, pare essere figlia adottiva in una famiglia di persone tecnologiche ed esperte della nascente scienza dei computer, cosa che le permise di riciclarsi in campo informatico dopo aver fatto studi umanistici (e in effetti la presenza di questi studi emerge proprio dalla grande qualità della scrittura). Credo che comunque sia l’unico elemento probabilmente un po’ romanzato, dato che tutti gli altri, compresa la grande consapevolezza tecnologica, certamente non possono esserlo.
Un libro che si pone nel filone della letteratura nata “a latere” della nuova tecnologia, cominciato con “Microservi” di Douglas Coupland e proseguito con questo (del 1997) e con i più recenti “io odio Internet” di Jarett Kobek e “La valle oscura” di Anna Wiener. Leggerli tutti, in ordine di uscita, certamente è un bel viaggio per capire come un certo mondo - quello che noi vediamo nella declinazione dei tizi ingrugnati davanti ai loro computer e che parlano a monosillabi, anche se sicuramente non è solo quello - si sia sviluppato e in qualche modo si sia impadronito delle nostre vite, rendendole sempre più virtuali e astratte.
Poi, tornato in ufficio, scherzavo (ma non era poi troppo uno scherzo) con una collega, dicendo che quelli, ci piacesse o no, erano i veri padroni del mondo, e noi eravamo nelle loro mani; gli unici a possedere la conoscenza profonda dei computer, gli unici in grado di capirli e dialogare con loro.
Questo libro, del 1997, parla proprio di quel mondo, e lo fa benissimo. La Ullman è infatti una programmatrice, che ha vissuto e lavorato nella Silicon Valley proprio negli anni dell’esplosione dell’informatica e delle reti, scrivendone peraltro con grande proprietà e qualità. Sono moltissimi gli spunti di riflessione suscitati dalla sua lettura: la fine della vecchia economia, quella di Wall Street e delle grandi imprese, e la nascita di un mondo economico liquido in cui ciascuno è un imprenditore di sé stesso e non esiste più nessun rapporto aziendale (paradossalmente, la proposta di un lavoro dipendente viene guardata con sospetto dai giovani informatici timorosi di perdere la propria libertà); la creazione di relazioni basati sulla comune professionalità, fortissime e emotivamente importanti finché durano (e durano giusto il tempo di concludere un progetto); la consapevolezza che quello che si sa è estremamente aleatorio, l’umiltà di doversi mettere a reimparare tutto da capo a scadenze ravvicinatissime e nello stesso tempo la paura costante di non riuscirci, non farcela ad arrivare alla fine dei progetti (paura che, a modo suo, è pure inebriante); il non fare più distinzione tra giorno e notte, tra tempo lavorato e tempo libero; il fare, ovviamente, soldi come se piovesse e magari trovarsi milionari da un giorno all’altro grazie alle stock options; lo stare ciascuno nella propria casa davanti al proprio computer con il totale annullamento di qualsiasi dimensione sociale, a parte gli occasionali incontri con i propri collaboratori, qualche cena più o meno rituale e qualche momento sessuale sotto l’insegna del poliamore; la prospettiva che qualsiasi cosa sarebbe stata virtualizzata, compreso il sistema bancario, monetario e delle transazioni economiche (qualcuno ha detto bitcoin?); la riduzione del pensiero e del ragionamento alla logica del computer, a modo suo rassicurante anche se ferocemente limitante, e la consapevolezza di aver fatto qualcosa di vero e di sensato solo nel momento in cui il programma su cui stai lavorando gira senza intoppi (nel mio piccolo ho imparato ciò che questo significa con qualche rudimento di Visual Basic); il pericolo per la privacy nel momento in cui le varie basi di dati vengono messe in collegamento tra di loro, cosa che qualsiasi cliente prima o poi ti chiederà; la produzione dei contenuti da parte degli utenti, che produrrà la loro svalutazione a favore del mezzo che li trasporta e li distribuisce; la selezione della conoscenza operata dai motori di ricerca.
La Ullman descrive con grande proprietà un mondo che conosce bene, oltre tutto con la capacità di vedere quello che il futuro avrebbe riservato da lì a pochi anni su scala globale e che, viasto da qui (dal nostro tempo, intendo) sembra incredibile potesse essere preconizzato quando ancora si marciava su interfacce a caratteri e linee ISDN. Peraltro, dopo aver finito di leggere il libro ho cercato qualche notizia su di lei, e mi è venuto il sospetto che esso sia meno autobiografico di quanto sembri. Nel libro molto spazio è dedicato al padre, un eroe della “old economy”, un ebreo immigrato a New York che dal nulla mette in piedi una società commerciale che gli permette di fare i soldi (non moltissimi ma abbastanza per comprare un palazzo dalle parti di Wall Street, zona che poi finirà rovinata proprio dalla “new economy” e dalla smaterializzazione di tutto lo smaterializzabile, compresi i negozi dove un tempo agenti di borsa e banchieri andavano a fare acquisti). La Ullman, dalle poche notizie su di lei reperite in rete, pare essere figlia adottiva in una famiglia di persone tecnologiche ed esperte della nascente scienza dei computer, cosa che le permise di riciclarsi in campo informatico dopo aver fatto studi umanistici (e in effetti la presenza di questi studi emerge proprio dalla grande qualità della scrittura). Credo che comunque sia l’unico elemento probabilmente un po’ romanzato, dato che tutti gli altri, compresa la grande consapevolezza tecnologica, certamente non possono esserlo.
Un libro che si pone nel filone della letteratura nata “a latere” della nuova tecnologia, cominciato con “Microservi” di Douglas Coupland e proseguito con questo (del 1997) e con i più recenti “io odio Internet” di Jarett Kobek e “La valle oscura” di Anna Wiener. Leggerli tutti, in ordine di uscita, certamente è un bel viaggio per capire come un certo mondo - quello che noi vediamo nella declinazione dei tizi ingrugnati davanti ai loro computer e che parlano a monosillabi, anche se sicuramente non è solo quello - si sia sviluppato e in qualche modo si sia impadronito delle nostre vite, rendendole sempre più virtuali e astratte.
September 18, 2016
There were multiple times while I was reading this book that I was so enthused by the author's words that I stopped, grabbed my spouse, and said, "Hold on...I have to read you this".
The book gives a well-written, thoughtful look into the day-to-day life of a female software engineer turned consultant. She navigates corporate and startup life, gives the reader a poignant look at the cultural phenomenon that is Silicon Valley, and doesn't spare her own thoughts, emotions, and insecurities along the way. While the book definitely dates itself via specific cultural references, the themes behind the specifics are still relevant to software engineers today.
I highly encourage anyone who is a software engineer or wants to understand the world of software engineers to read this book.
The book gives a well-written, thoughtful look into the day-to-day life of a female software engineer turned consultant. She navigates corporate and startup life, gives the reader a poignant look at the cultural phenomenon that is Silicon Valley, and doesn't spare her own thoughts, emotions, and insecurities along the way. While the book definitely dates itself via specific cultural references, the themes behind the specifics are still relevant to software engineers today.
I highly encourage anyone who is a software engineer or wants to understand the world of software engineers to read this book.
December 20, 2021
I must have read this book for the first time, some two years after it was published in 1997, and remember being struck by its matter of fact candidness about the psychological rewards, passions and angst of life as a dedicated independent software engineer and project leader. Ullman was smart, funny and living in a technologically advanced world I could only envy from Venezuela -I wished I could live surrounded by my computers, hooked into a network that could allow me to work at a distance and having the courage to leap from fascinating project to fascinating project. Her fear of becoming obsolete resonated deeply with me as I struggled with stabilizing and leaving a research group in parallelism I had created and led and embarking on a steep learning curve that would allow me to (hopefully finally) understand object-oriented programming and return to teaching software engineering. As Ullman puts it in her reflective memoir:
In spite of the changes that have come about since 1997, I believe this memoir should be considered a classic book on software engineering and strongly recommend it as background, thought-provoking reading to anyone interested in cyberethics or software engineering.
It had to happen to me sometime: sooner or later I would have to lose sight of the cutting edge. That moment every technical person fears -the fall into knowledge exhaustion, obsolescence, techno-fuddy-dudyism […] Still, I didn't expect it so soon […] Suddenly and inexplicably, I wanted my arrogance back. I wanted to go back to the time when I thought that, if I tinkered a bit, I could make anything work. That I could learn anything, in no time, and be good at it. The arrogance is a job requirement. It is the confidence-builder that lets you keep walking toward the thin cutting edge. It's what lets you forget that your knowledge will be old in a year, you've never seen this technology before, you have only a dim understanding of what you're doing, but -hey, this is fun- and who cares since you'll figure it all out somehow.Rereading the memoir in 2021, I simultaneously wonder how I could have missed so many of the key points and reflections she makes and I am in awe of how prescient she was of the coming techno-centered world and especially of its warts. As she put it:
...we virtual workers are everyone's future. We wander from job to job, and now it's hard for anyone to stay put anymore. Our job commitments are contractual, contingent, impermanent, and this model of insecure life is spreading outward from us. I may be wrong, but I have this idea that we programmers are the world's canaries. We spend our time alone in front of monitors; now look up at any office building, look into living-room windows at night: so many people sitting alone in front of monitors. We lead machine-centered lives; now everyone's life is full of automated tellers, portable phones, pagers, keyboards, mice. We live in a contest of the fittest, where the most knowledgeable and skillful win and the rest are discarded; and this is the working life that waits for everybody...A couple of years ago I started looking earnestly at cyberethics and at the social, environmental and economic impacts of computing -only to discover Ellen Ullman had been wrestling and reflecting on such issues in this book -the AIDS project she worked on and many of her keen insights into how it lost sight of what were supposed to be its beneficiaries and its key values anticipate the lessons later hammered home in painstaking detail by books like Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor -see for example Eubanks' chapters on three unfair information systems developed roughly between 2012 and 2016: the state of Indiana’s automatized welfare eligibility process, a coordinated entry system in Los Angeles to match the homeless with available housing, and the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families (CYF)’s Information and Demographics System (KIDS) to predict children which could be at risk of abuse).Ullman worries about unfairness, about excessive surveillance, about the click-driven economy, about the coming gig economy (before it received that name), about neoliberal cypher-punk visions of the world, in short about computing and morality -it is the stuff of her nightmares, qualms and uneasy guilt. However although Ellen Ullman, shares her qualms and uncomfortable, queasy insights “for the record”, she is enamoured and addicted to the adrenalin rushes and the passionate intellectual satisfaction of overcoming the challenges of software development, to those magical sharing moments of what appear to be mind melding between team members, to falling into the highly focused, creative and productive mental state of of flow, so that in the end, she opts to bury her head in her work, forge ahead and damn the torpedoes.
In spite of the changes that have come about since 1997, I believe this memoir should be considered a classic book on software engineering and strongly recommend it as background, thought-provoking reading to anyone interested in cyberethics or software engineering.
January 18, 2020
I read this as a sort of warmup for the highly anticipated Uncanny Valley: A Memoir, which is also a memoir of a #womanintech. I wanted to compare their experiences and writing styles, and perhaps gain a better understanding of how the tech landscape has changed in the last two decades (Close to the Machine was first published in 1997).
I haven't read Uncanny Valley when I'm writing this review, but as someone who once dabbled in tech myself, here's something I learned: TECHBROS IN THE 90s ARE JUST LIKE TECHBROS IN THE PRESENT DAY! I mean, yes, they wore suits and less hoodies back in the days, but the Boomer Techbros (a Thing!) are also self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist libertarians" who spend way too much time fantasizing about bringing an end to banks through the disruption of "financial transactions."
This was the Waterfall Era, pre-Agile. As Ellen Ullman painstakingly describes it,
This memoir should be a classic and a recommended read for anyone working in tech.
I haven't read Uncanny Valley when I'm writing this review, but as someone who once dabbled in tech myself, here's something I learned: TECHBROS IN THE 90s ARE JUST LIKE TECHBROS IN THE PRESENT DAY! I mean, yes, they wore suits and less hoodies back in the days, but the Boomer Techbros (a Thing!) are also self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist libertarians" who spend way too much time fantasizing about bringing an end to banks through the disruption of "financial transactions."
This was the Waterfall Era, pre-Agile. As Ellen Ullman painstakingly describes it,
The vice president went on to describe her development process.
"Everything we do starts from a complete requirements analysis."
I imagined months, years of meetings; reams of paper. Flowcharts. Spreadsheets.
"Then it moves to the systems analysts, who turn those requirements into system objectives and timelines."
More meetings, documents, flowcharts, spreadsheets. Dataset listings. Equipment requirements. Proposed configuration drawings.
"User departments then review the system functional specification."
Contentious meetings. Users trying to articulate needs that don't fit neatly into all the flowcharts and drawings. Compromises Promises of "future development" to take unaddressed needs into account.
"Then it moves to programming," said the vice president.
...
I thought of the place where "it moves to programming." I asked and found out that the vice president didn't see much of the programmers; they were levels beneath her; they worked in a building a ten-minute drive from her office. When it "moved to programming," it literally moved, far away from her, into some realm where other managers had to deal with the special species of human being known as programmers.
...
I noticed how quickly she moved from programming to "deployment"--there, done, success. In that place she ran over so quickly was a dimly understood process: programmers turning the many pages of specifications into a foreign language called code.
This memoir should be a classic and a recommended read for anyone working in tech.
January 17, 2019
Written before 1997, this is part musings on contract work and ad-hoc teams, part breakdown of the phases of a project, and mostly memoir. That last bit is the least readable, with little direction or focus. I think she tries to connect her relationship arc with Brian to a project phase arc - but it isn't convincing.
There are interesting nuggets here, and she does capture the frenzy of contract work and venture capital and startups from twenty years ago.
Like a few other reviewers, I'm not sure how this ended up on my to-be-read list. Many reviewers, along with forward author Jaron Lanier, list it as indispensable, insightful, or a cult classic. While more rare because it was penned by a woman, and perhaps unusual for the perspective at the time, neither of these facets make it inherently "good".
There are interesting nuggets here, and she does capture the frenzy of contract work and venture capital and startups from twenty years ago.
Like a few other reviewers, I'm not sure how this ended up on my to-be-read list. Many reviewers, along with forward author Jaron Lanier, list it as indispensable, insightful, or a cult classic. While more rare because it was penned by a woman, and perhaps unusual for the perspective at the time, neither of these facets make it inherently "good".
April 20, 2008
I picked this book up at Citylights on a whim - as a non-programmer living in San Francisco it was great to read about the programmer's work world. The book reads like a conversation with a friend - flowing from work stories to love life and self reflection - with a consistent tone and set of questions. I really enjoyed hearing her thoughts on the impact of technology and computer programming on physical space and human interactions, a subject very near and dear to my heart. I also enjoyed learning that the clunky cumbersomeness of systems we use to regulate physical space are also problematic in the programming world. I'd suggest it to anyone - it is short and sweet.
September 29, 2013
Ellen Ullman's Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents is autobiographical, yet is written in a erudite, breezy style that comes off the page as though she is actually sitting there, on the couch with the reader, who just happens to be her best friend. I'd almost say stream of consciousness. Her manner is personable and although much of the information given is technical, it does not come across as technobabble. The author does not wear her brilliance on her sleeve, she glows from within without burning.
She makes us feel the adrenalin rush of overcoming technical problems she has faced, and gives us an understanding of the tightknit world of programmers. We learn of her life path, her love for family along with her frustration with same. We learn of her reaching middle age and the fear obsolescence in her chosen field. Then the overcoming of both the fear and the obsolescence.
I've read one of her works of fiction, By Blood, which exhibits the same 'pull you in and along' sort of prose. Completely different, naturally, but just as compelling.
Highly Recommended.
She makes us feel the adrenalin rush of overcoming technical problems she has faced, and gives us an understanding of the tightknit world of programmers. We learn of her life path, her love for family along with her frustration with same. We learn of her reaching middle age and the fear obsolescence in her chosen field. Then the overcoming of both the fear and the obsolescence.
I've read one of her works of fiction, By Blood, which exhibits the same 'pull you in and along' sort of prose. Completely different, naturally, but just as compelling.
Highly Recommended.
March 4, 2014
Ellen Ullman's novel
The Bug
is one of my favorite books, and I was excited to read Close to the Machine, her memoirs about working in Silicon Valley. Ullman's take on the tech world is uniquely refreshing and mirrors my own in some key ways, and I think she offers a unique insight on the industry that is valuable for any software developer.
Close to the Machine did not disappoint. It was a fabulously interesting read, and while it only covers a short swath of Silicon Valley history, it is rich with insight and intelligence—a break from the usual feel-good tripe written about software development. Admittedly, some parts of it were a bit slow, particularly where she waxes philosophical about the nature of contract work, but overall I found it to be edifying and worth the time I put into it.
While she has plenty of articles floating around, her only other book (that I haven't read) is By Blood . I'm impressed enough by both Close to the Machine and The Bug that I may just give By Blood a go at some point.
Close to the Machine did not disappoint. It was a fabulously interesting read, and while it only covers a short swath of Silicon Valley history, it is rich with insight and intelligence—a break from the usual feel-good tripe written about software development. Admittedly, some parts of it were a bit slow, particularly where she waxes philosophical about the nature of contract work, but overall I found it to be edifying and worth the time I put into it.
While she has plenty of articles floating around, her only other book (that I haven't read) is By Blood . I'm impressed enough by both Close to the Machine and The Bug that I may just give By Blood a go at some point.
January 29, 2013
A powerful and personal story about life in the tech world of mid-90s San Francisco, told so well by Ellen Ullman. She's got such a clear voice and such a plain and thorough understanding of the things she's discussing that even as the text wanders through her various jobs and relationships and family stories, you have no trouble following the thread.
This book was also written at an interesting time in computer history, right before a major boom but when it was visible on the horizon. I'm not an expert historian of the era, but this kind of narrative, in that its so personal and not about accumulating wealth or mastering machines or whatever, seems too rare.
One minor gripe: I read the 2012 reprinting, which features an intro from Jaron Lanier but little else in the way of explaining what's new. There are a few footnotes that are obviously more current than the original 1997 publication date — it was a little disconcerting not to know what had been touched and what had been kept in place. I think it was probably just a few additional footnotes, though.
This book was also written at an interesting time in computer history, right before a major boom but when it was visible on the horizon. I'm not an expert historian of the era, but this kind of narrative, in that its so personal and not about accumulating wealth or mastering machines or whatever, seems too rare.
One minor gripe: I read the 2012 reprinting, which features an intro from Jaron Lanier but little else in the way of explaining what's new. There are a few footnotes that are obviously more current than the original 1997 publication date — it was a little disconcerting not to know what had been touched and what had been kept in place. I think it was probably just a few additional footnotes, though.
May 17, 2020
I first read Ellen Ullman as an 18-year-old and I subsequently wrote a personal statement on how her essays as an early woman software engineer had an impression on me as a software student (for the record, I did NOT get in).
Two years later, reading Close to the Machine had no less an effect on me. I think it’s very important for all of us to understand just how tech culture started, and what it was like before all of the rapid developments we’re now used to. I have no doubt this book will be beneficial for everyone to read, whether you’re a programmer or not.
(And if you’re a programmer, one of the cool albeit small things about this novel is that she used zero-based numbering for her index, haha.)
Two years later, reading Close to the Machine had no less an effect on me. I think it’s very important for all of us to understand just how tech culture started, and what it was like before all of the rapid developments we’re now used to. I have no doubt this book will be beneficial for everyone to read, whether you’re a programmer or not.
(And if you’re a programmer, one of the cool albeit small things about this novel is that she used zero-based numbering for her index, haha.)
July 3, 2020
I read "Life in Code" a few years ago. It's one of the reasons I started learning, well, to write code.
I finally got my hands on Ullman's first book, and it is far more personal than "Life in Code." She talks about the questions she learns to ask when building software, and there is a fascinating common thread between (what I read as) her eventual disillusion with the tech industry and her eventual disillusion with the communist party (I was not expecting that one).
For all she does to bare her philosophical dilemmas, to question the consequences of technical decisions, she doesn't acknowledge her privilege, coming from a family with NY real estate wealth, as much as I would've hoped.
Nonetheless I enjoyed this, and she just writes *so* well.
I finally got my hands on Ullman's first book, and it is far more personal than "Life in Code." She talks about the questions she learns to ask when building software, and there is a fascinating common thread between (what I read as) her eventual disillusion with the tech industry and her eventual disillusion with the communist party (I was not expecting that one).
For all she does to bare her philosophical dilemmas, to question the consequences of technical decisions, she doesn't acknowledge her privilege, coming from a family with NY real estate wealth, as much as I would've hoped.
Nonetheless I enjoyed this, and she just writes *so* well.
June 19, 2019
Es war interessant, mal ein Buch aus der Softwarebranche zu lesen, das anders erzählt ist als die meisten, die ich bisher kannte. Viele schöne Beobachtungen drin. Insgesamt war es mir ein bisschen zu "diese Entwicklungen sind besorgniserregend, wo bleibt denn da der Mensch", aber noch gut erträglich.
April 2, 2016
Close to the Machine was excellent; it was powerful and moving and as a programmer-of-sorts I found it extremely relatable. I made a video about it, exploring obselescence and the future as the past.
February 23, 2018
read this after reading The Bug: A Novel by the same author. her perspective on technology and how it controls us is insightful, particularly in the ways it's informed by her history in the industry.
January 3, 2021
Il codice è un algoritmo, un procedimento chiaro e finito. Il codice funziona o non funziona, e se non funziona vuol dire che c’è un errore da individuare. Dalle parole della Ullman s’intuisce che chi sperimenta quel tipo di sospensione accede a nuovi significati d’esistenza. Quanto può essere attraente l’idea di abbandonare un veicolo precario come il corpo per sparire in un luogo in cui «lo spazio potrà essere sempre, solidamente numerico»?
Però il libro si ferma qui: un paio di premesse felici, qualche domanda interessante, ma niente di più.
Però il libro si ferma qui: un paio di premesse felici, qualche domanda interessante, ma niente di più.
February 25, 2024
Molto carino. Descrive bene la sensazione di lavorare freelance nell'IT ma si perde troppo in alcuni punti "esistenziali" e meno nell'esperienza pratica
July 27, 2024
It must be nice to have your faith in Silicon Valley eroded over years of working there. Too bad mine was gone before I moved.
May 4, 2018
Un memoir interessante e di facile e rapida lettura, scritto da una programmatrice con un passato da militante comunista e un presente da operatrice essenziale del cybercapitalismo globale.
Il libro contiene riflessioni interessanti, ma è un'autobiografia con osservazioni sparse qua e là.
Mi aspettavo qualcosa in più, perché di non fiction sui temi di web e informatica ne stanno uscendo molti, ultimamente.
Il libro contiene riflessioni interessanti, ma è un'autobiografia con osservazioni sparse qua e là.
Mi aspettavo qualcosa in più, perché di non fiction sui temi di web e informatica ne stanno uscendo molti, ultimamente.
September 1, 2017
I enjoyed this, though reading it in 2017 at times it was a little dated--I probably would have given it 4 stars if I read it when it was first published. Still, it was prescient in many ways about the way technology is shaping business and society. It's essentially a memoir, and like many memoirs it danced along the line between self-reflection and self-involvement.
January 28, 2018
It’s an enjoyable and easy read about people in IT industry. I didn’t rate it higher because I didn’t quite learn anything from the book since I’m working in the same field as the author, doing pretty much the same. It was good to relate to some aspects of her life, but that’s about it.
Perhaps, it’d be of more use to people outside of IT to understand IT industry and people who make it tick.
Perhaps, it’d be of more use to people outside of IT to understand IT industry and people who make it tick.
January 26, 2020
Cute, short tech memoir by that rare species - a woman. If you've ever wondered what programmers are actually doing when they are staying up all night fuelled by pizza and a release deadline, this job does an excellent job of explaining.
I could've done without the sex scenes though. Not enough self-awareness on the part of the author to make them anything but gratuitous.
I could've done without the sex scenes though. Not enough self-awareness on the part of the author to make them anything but gratuitous.
February 20, 2021
I liked that the author had a programmer’s perspective (unlike the woman who wrote Uncanny Valley). Unfortunately, while Ellen Ullman related her discomfort with Silicon Valley and its culture, she never truly investigated any of the qualms she might have had about being part of it. I guess the machines, and the profits she made off of working with them, proved too alluring.
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