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"You Are Not Expected to Understand This": How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World
Leading technologists, historians, and journalists reveal the stories behind the computer coding that touches all aspects of life―for better or worse
Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code� makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. “You Are Not Expected to Understand This� demonstrates that, far from being preordained, computer code is the result of very human decisions, ones we all live with when we use social media, take photos, drive our cars, and engage in a host of other activities.
Everything from law enforcement to space exploration relies on code written by people who, at the time, made choices and assumptions that would have long-lasting, profound implications for society. Torie Bosch brings together many of today’s leading technology experts to provide new perspectives on the code that shapes our lives. Contributors discuss a host of topics, such as how university databases were programmed long ago to accept only two genders, what the person who programmed the very first pop-up ad was thinking at the time, the first computer worm, the Bitcoin white paper, and perhaps the most famous seven words in Unix “You are not expected to understand this.�
This compelling book tells the human stories behind programming, enabling those of us who don’t think much about code to recognize its importance, and those who work with it every day to better understand the long-term effects of the decisions they make.
With an introduction by Ellen Ullman and contributions by Mahsa Alimardani, Elena Botella, Meredith Broussard, David Cassel, Arthur Daemmrich, Charles Duan, Quinn DuPont, Claire L. Evans, Hany Farid, James Grimmelmann, Katie Hafner, Susan C. Herring, Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana, Lowen Liu, John MacCormick, Brian McCullough, Charlton McIlwain, Lily Hay Newman, Margaret O’Mara, Will Oremus, Nick Partridge, Benjamin Pope, Joy Lisi Rankin, Afsaneh Rigot, Ellen R. Stofan, Lee Vinsel, Josephine Wolff, and Ethan Zuckerman.
Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code� makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. “You Are Not Expected to Understand This� demonstrates that, far from being preordained, computer code is the result of very human decisions, ones we all live with when we use social media, take photos, drive our cars, and engage in a host of other activities.
Everything from law enforcement to space exploration relies on code written by people who, at the time, made choices and assumptions that would have long-lasting, profound implications for society. Torie Bosch brings together many of today’s leading technology experts to provide new perspectives on the code that shapes our lives. Contributors discuss a host of topics, such as how university databases were programmed long ago to accept only two genders, what the person who programmed the very first pop-up ad was thinking at the time, the first computer worm, the Bitcoin white paper, and perhaps the most famous seven words in Unix “You are not expected to understand this.�
This compelling book tells the human stories behind programming, enabling those of us who don’t think much about code to recognize its importance, and those who work with it every day to better understand the long-term effects of the decisions they make.
With an introduction by Ellen Ullman and contributions by Mahsa Alimardani, Elena Botella, Meredith Broussard, David Cassel, Arthur Daemmrich, Charles Duan, Quinn DuPont, Claire L. Evans, Hany Farid, James Grimmelmann, Katie Hafner, Susan C. Herring, Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana, Lowen Liu, John MacCormick, Brian McCullough, Charlton McIlwain, Lily Hay Newman, Margaret O’Mara, Will Oremus, Nick Partridge, Benjamin Pope, Joy Lisi Rankin, Afsaneh Rigot, Ellen R. Stofan, Lee Vinsel, Josephine Wolff, and Ethan Zuckerman.
216 pages, Paperback
Published November 15, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
January 2, 2023
They wrote a book just for me! I would actually recommend starting with the title essay (#10 of 26), reading to the end, and then if you like history of computer stuff, go back to the beginning. If the history of computers really runs you the wrong way, start at Will Oremus� essay (#21), go to the end, and then if you enjoy, go back and do #15-20.
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November 9, 2024Nature magazine's short review, 2/4/23 :
"The title of this intriguingly human collection of articles about computer coding quotes a line from the Unix source code, written by a programmer in 1975. The code contained a frustrating bug that could not be fixed, so the software had to be entirely rewritten. Coding has always consisted of both wins and blunders, as discussed by the book’s 29 contributors, including programmers, technologists, historians, journalists and academics, covering subjects ranging from space exploration to human biases around race."
Pretty good reviews here, too. Library! 11/8/24 note: sadly, none ever appeared. Sigh.
"The title of this intriguingly human collection of articles about computer coding quotes a line from the Unix source code, written by a programmer in 1975. The code contained a frustrating bug that could not be fixed, so the software had to be entirely rewritten. Coding has always consisted of both wins and blunders, as discussed by the book’s 29 contributors, including programmers, technologists, historians, journalists and academics, covering subjects ranging from space exploration to human biases around race."
Pretty good reviews here, too. Library! 11/8/24 note: sadly, none ever appeared. Sigh.
December 9, 2022
Each of the essays are pretty light and breezy, but this book covers a lot of ground from a lot of different perspectives. Some of the stories were more familiar than others, and it moves along at enough of a clip that even the well-worn anecdotes never get too repetitive. Overall a nice collection for folks interested in software and society.
May 14, 2023
As a general rule I thought this book was great. As long as the essays tried to stay away from gender issues. When it moved away from tech and issues directly related to tech it was pretty unreadable. Especially the last essay, you'd be better off skipping it.
I would have given another two stars at least without those bits that distracted from what otherwise could have been an excellent book.
I would have given another two stars at least without those bits that distracted from what otherwise could have been an excellent book.
August 19, 2023
An interesting read, though very high level and geared towards a completely non-technical audience.
The subtitle “How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World� is a reference to the Slate article that inspired this essay collection, though 26 programs (or 26 programmers, as many of the earlier essays focus on individuals and their contributions to computing) may be more apt.
For those who enjoy “teaching by anecdote�, however, there are a number of interesting examples of various computational concepts and historical explanations, so it’s a good way to add a very human lens to a sometimes overly conceptual field.
The subtitle “How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World� is a reference to the Slate article that inspired this essay collection, though 26 programs (or 26 programmers, as many of the earlier essays focus on individuals and their contributions to computing) may be more apt.
For those who enjoy “teaching by anecdote�, however, there are a number of interesting examples of various computational concepts and historical explanations, so it’s a good way to add a very human lens to a sometimes overly conceptual field.
November 28, 2022
Baby’s first book on the history/culture of computing!
This book contains 26 highly readable short-form essays, written by different authors on different nontrivial moments/developments in computing history. Due to the nature of the essay collection, the essays occasionally repeat subject matter. This isn’t a highly technical book, but I do feel like the ideal reader should have written some simple programs in their past.
This book contains 26 highly readable short-form essays, written by different authors on different nontrivial moments/developments in computing history. Due to the nature of the essay collection, the essays occasionally repeat subject matter. This isn’t a highly technical book, but I do feel like the ideal reader should have written some simple programs in their past.
January 2, 2024
First book of 2024 done! Probably won't hit the same heights as last year in terms of number of books read as I plan on tackling some big boys this year, but hopefully the page count will be similar.
This book, as the title semi-suggests, consists of 26 brief essays on "lines" of code throughout computing history, all with different authors. I write "lines" because most of the essays actually have to do with large pieces of code, rather than a single actual line. At heart, I'm a big slut for anything computer history so this seemed right up my alley. While some of the essays were utterly fascinating and insightful, however, there were ones that definitely missed the mark. I'll try and do a 1-sentence-ish hot take/summary of each.
1. The First Line of Code - Great in-depth exploration of the origins of programmable machinery.
2. Monte Carlo Algorithms - Another great little bit of detailed history.
3. The Code that Runs the World - Maybe the best essay in this book, primarily dealing with the development of COBOL.
4. Spacewar - Lovely early history of gaming culture.
5. The Illusion of Empowerment - Some interesting takes on BASIC and its ramifications, although at times maybe a bit of a reach.
6. The First Email - As the title suggests, brief history of email.
7. The Police Beat Algorithm - Great choice of an early example of data biases leading to some interesting ramifications.
8. "Apollo 11, Do Bailout" - Can't go wrong with a bit of space history.
9. The Most Famous Comment - See title of the book for said comment. Programmer comments can be hilarious.
10. The Accidental Felon - Nice exploration of the closest the Internet has ever come to collapsing, thanks to an unintentional bug in an intentional hack.
11. Internet Relay Chat - Cool etymological history of modern text slang.
12. Hyperlink - Hmm a lot of this one might have went over my head, but interesting nonetheless.
13. JPEG - Cool dive into image compression, although maybe a little math heavy when compared with the other sections.
14. The Image You've Never Seen - I had, in fact, never seen this image.
15. The Pop-Up Ad - Don't apologize, Ethan, it would've happened anyway.
16. Wear This Code, Go To Jail - Great example of programmers being pricks in the best way possible.
17. Needles in the Biggest Haystack - Brief history of PageRank.
18. A Failure to Interoperate - Again, can't really go wrong with space history.
19. A Million Cat Videos - A bit of a misleading title, but nice little history of Roomba.
20. Nakamoto's Prophecy - Bitcoin history.
21. The Curse of the Awesome Button - Guys, I think we're looking into this one a little too much. It's just a like button.
22. The Bug No One Was Responsible For - Yikes, a buffer overflow in security software (and as late as 2014!!!!! Clearly no one had read Bruce Schneier's book...).
23. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal - Yeah, this one is bad.
24. Bringing a Language Online - Nice example of programmers empowering the people, even if there are some negative side effects.
25. Telegram - I really wish that there was a bit of a better description of what Telegram actually is, but maybe I should just know more about it.
26. Encoding Gender - Bad way to wrap the book up. While the message of individual freedom is a good one, there are multiple convoluted/unnecessary explanations along with a couple of historical inaccuracies.
All in all, pretty much what you would expect given the title. The multiple authors often made this seem like a blog in book form, and not always in a good way, as each author sometimes was clearly writing to a different level of computer knowledge and/or had evidently not read the other authors' pieces.
TL;DR: Quick read, worth it if you're interested in computer history.
This book, as the title semi-suggests, consists of 26 brief essays on "lines" of code throughout computing history, all with different authors. I write "lines" because most of the essays actually have to do with large pieces of code, rather than a single actual line. At heart, I'm a big slut for anything computer history so this seemed right up my alley. While some of the essays were utterly fascinating and insightful, however, there were ones that definitely missed the mark. I'll try and do a 1-sentence-ish hot take/summary of each.
1. The First Line of Code - Great in-depth exploration of the origins of programmable machinery.
2. Monte Carlo Algorithms - Another great little bit of detailed history.
3. The Code that Runs the World - Maybe the best essay in this book, primarily dealing with the development of COBOL.
4. Spacewar - Lovely early history of gaming culture.
5. The Illusion of Empowerment - Some interesting takes on BASIC and its ramifications, although at times maybe a bit of a reach.
6. The First Email - As the title suggests, brief history of email.
7. The Police Beat Algorithm - Great choice of an early example of data biases leading to some interesting ramifications.
8. "Apollo 11, Do Bailout" - Can't go wrong with a bit of space history.
9. The Most Famous Comment - See title of the book for said comment. Programmer comments can be hilarious.
10. The Accidental Felon - Nice exploration of the closest the Internet has ever come to collapsing, thanks to an unintentional bug in an intentional hack.
11. Internet Relay Chat - Cool etymological history of modern text slang.
12. Hyperlink - Hmm a lot of this one might have went over my head, but interesting nonetheless.
13. JPEG - Cool dive into image compression, although maybe a little math heavy when compared with the other sections.
14. The Image You've Never Seen - I had, in fact, never seen this image.
15. The Pop-Up Ad - Don't apologize, Ethan, it would've happened anyway.
16. Wear This Code, Go To Jail - Great example of programmers being pricks in the best way possible.
17. Needles in the Biggest Haystack - Brief history of PageRank.
18. A Failure to Interoperate - Again, can't really go wrong with space history.
19. A Million Cat Videos - A bit of a misleading title, but nice little history of Roomba.
20. Nakamoto's Prophecy - Bitcoin history.
21. The Curse of the Awesome Button - Guys, I think we're looking into this one a little too much. It's just a like button.
22. The Bug No One Was Responsible For - Yikes, a buffer overflow in security software (and as late as 2014!!!!! Clearly no one had read Bruce Schneier's book...).
23. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal - Yeah, this one is bad.
24. Bringing a Language Online - Nice example of programmers empowering the people, even if there are some negative side effects.
25. Telegram - I really wish that there was a bit of a better description of what Telegram actually is, but maybe I should just know more about it.
26. Encoding Gender - Bad way to wrap the book up. While the message of individual freedom is a good one, there are multiple convoluted/unnecessary explanations along with a couple of historical inaccuracies.
All in all, pretty much what you would expect given the title. The multiple authors often made this seem like a blog in book form, and not always in a good way, as each author sometimes was clearly writing to a different level of computer knowledge and/or had evidently not read the other authors' pieces.
TL;DR: Quick read, worth it if you're interested in computer history.
January 7, 2024
A great little collection of short stories about software that has had a big impact on the world. I really appreciated that they included essays that talked about how the history of computer programming is not one of objective truth, but one that has reflected all coders' biases around race, gender, etc.
The title is not really doing the book many favors, because that quote is from a single story (and barely even the focus of that one) and almost every story focuses on software at a *much* larger scale than a single line of code.
Anyway, this is pretty accessible and fun if you want a whirlwind tour of some big moments in computer software.
The title is not really doing the book many favors, because that quote is from a single story (and barely even the focus of that one) and almost every story focuses on software at a *much* larger scale than a single line of code.
Anyway, this is pretty accessible and fun if you want a whirlwind tour of some big moments in computer software.
May 11, 2024
“Programming mistakes, quick short cuts that become permanent fixtures, flashes of brilliance � all of us have to deal with them� (xii).
Really interested book about the history and legacy of code. Main takeaway is that even a few lines of code (and bugs) can have a huge impacts on people, and the world at large.
A must-read for anyone in the tech industry.
Really interested book about the history and legacy of code. Main takeaway is that even a few lines of code (and bugs) can have a huge impacts on people, and the world at large.
A must-read for anyone in the tech industry.
July 5, 2023
Absolutely fascinating
December 22, 2022
This is a collection of essays on the history of computer programming. It covers the creation of email, popup ads, computer viruses, IRC, the JPEG format, hyperlinks, the page rank algorithm, the Like button, blockchain and more. The writing was engaging and seemed to be well informed. I would have enjoyed more about the theory of programming - perhaps an essay on Turing Machines, NP complete problems or more on programming as an academic discipline. Something on quantum computing and on deep learning. I don't know. You can't cover everything in a book like this and the authors found topics that were generally interesting and accessible. I learned a few new things. So in the end they did a pretty good job.
August 3, 2024
A fascinating book about the various way computers and coding have changed the world. Some essays are on the history of coding and others are on famous code hacks. Some essays touch on ethics, social justice, discrimination and cheats that coding has enabled. And, of course, one essay is one that infamous comment found in the Commentary on UNIX: "You are not expected to understand this."
What follows is a summary of each essay in the book.
1. The First Line of Code: a look at what may be the first lines of code written in history to control weaving looms using punch cards.
2. Monte Carlo Algorithms: Random Numbers in Computing from the H-Bomb to Today: on the history of Monte Carlo Algorithms, whose statistics and random numbers are used in many fields to estimate the future behaviours of systems in many fields.
3. Jean Sammet and the Code That Runs the World: on programmer Jean Sammet who (with Grace Hopper), pulled together early attempts at programming languages to come up with COBOL.
4. Spacewar: Collaborative Coding and the Rise of Gaming Culture: on the history of Spacewar, the first graphical computer game, and the culture (and joy) of hacking computers that came up around it.
5. BASIC and the Illusion of Coding Empowerment: on how BASIC enabled interactive programming for students on time-shared systems. But early on, this was only for entitled students, mainly the better-off white males in the US.
6. The First Email: The Code That Connected Us Online: the ability to send messages from one user to another on the same computer system was so in demand that the need to be able to send messages from one system to another was developed and became the email that we know today.
7. The Police Beat Algorithm: The Code That Launched Computational Policing and Modern Racial Profiling: the search for a technological solution to policing at a time when racial riots were rife would lead to the surveillance systems in use today.
8. "Apollo 11, Do Bailout": on the capabilities of the computer on the Apollo Lunar Lander that enabled the moon landing.
9. The Most Famous Comment in Unix History: "You Are Not Expected to Understand This": this comment, and others in source code, show the personalities and abilities of the people who wrote the code, and left such comments in the code as guidelines (or for fun) for future programmers.
10. The Accidental Felon: on the history of the Morris worm, the self-replicating code that bought down many systems in the early days of the Internet.
11. Internet Relay Chat: From Fish-Slap to LOL: on the propagation of the culture of leaving 'actions' as words on the early internet relay chat into today's social media, leading to postings of LOLs and other kinds of interactive reactions, as well as emojis.
12. Hyperlink: The Idea That Led to Another, and Another, and Another: the history of hyperlinks, which lead people from one document to another, ad infinitum.
13 JPEG: The Unsung Hero in the Digital Revolution: how JPEG works to compress digital images and how this would lead to the fingerprinting of images to individual digital cameras.
14. The Viral Internet Image You've Never Seen: refers to the notorious single pixel image file that appears (hidden) on webpages and emails to track who is fetching the information.
15. The Pop-Up Ad: The Code That Made the Internet Worse: written by the person who wrote the first pop-up ad, it talks about taking responsiblity for what you do with technology.
16. Wear This Code, Go to Jail: starting with the Perl code for the RSA algorithm printed on a shirt, it goes on to shows the problems with trying to do export controls or to restrict software.
17. Needles in the World's Biggest Haystack: The Algorithm That Ranked the Internet: on the ranking algorithm that lauched Google.
18. A Failure to Interoperate: The Lost Mars Climate Orbiter: the Mars probe was lost due to conversion bug between metric and imperial measurements. But the article points to the bigger problem of the decline in interoperability of current day software and applications due to business decisions (to restrict competition).
19. The Code That Launched a Million Cat Videos: viral videos of cats reacting to the iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner helped to make it popular. But the software for the Roomba at the time, that controlled its somewhat random behaviour, also helped to make it beloved for the idiosyncratic way of cleaning a room.
20. Nakamoto's Prophecy: Bitcoin and the Revolution in Trust: on the development of bitcoin and the blockchain behind it that may yet revolutionize the way people trust one another and do business without a central authority.
21. The Curse of the Awesome Button: the development of Facebook's 'Like' button started off as a way to provide feedback on the social network. But it then became a way to track users as they moved from site to site.
22. The Bug No One Was Responsible For-Until Everyone Was: Heartbleed (a buffer overflow error in OpenSSH) was a programming error, but it showed the effects of using a popular piece of code but not providing proper support to the developers of the code.
23. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: How Digital Systems Can Be Used to Cheat: how software became a way to cheat and get around regulations.
24. The Code That Brought a Language Online: the development of software to allow users to enter text in Bangla after a terror attack in Bangladesh would have repercussions for blogging and freedom of expression in the country afterwards.
25. Telegram: The Platform That Became "the Internet" in Iran: Telegram enabled users in Iran to communicate and to broadcast messages in channels until it became Iranian's view of the Internet, for a while.
26. Encoding Gender: the issues around storing information on gender, when most databases are set up to only accept two binary gender values.
What follows is a summary of each essay in the book.
1. The First Line of Code: a look at what may be the first lines of code written in history to control weaving looms using punch cards.
2. Monte Carlo Algorithms: Random Numbers in Computing from the H-Bomb to Today: on the history of Monte Carlo Algorithms, whose statistics and random numbers are used in many fields to estimate the future behaviours of systems in many fields.
3. Jean Sammet and the Code That Runs the World: on programmer Jean Sammet who (with Grace Hopper), pulled together early attempts at programming languages to come up with COBOL.
4. Spacewar: Collaborative Coding and the Rise of Gaming Culture: on the history of Spacewar, the first graphical computer game, and the culture (and joy) of hacking computers that came up around it.
5. BASIC and the Illusion of Coding Empowerment: on how BASIC enabled interactive programming for students on time-shared systems. But early on, this was only for entitled students, mainly the better-off white males in the US.
6. The First Email: The Code That Connected Us Online: the ability to send messages from one user to another on the same computer system was so in demand that the need to be able to send messages from one system to another was developed and became the email that we know today.
7. The Police Beat Algorithm: The Code That Launched Computational Policing and Modern Racial Profiling: the search for a technological solution to policing at a time when racial riots were rife would lead to the surveillance systems in use today.
8. "Apollo 11, Do Bailout": on the capabilities of the computer on the Apollo Lunar Lander that enabled the moon landing.
9. The Most Famous Comment in Unix History: "You Are Not Expected to Understand This": this comment, and others in source code, show the personalities and abilities of the people who wrote the code, and left such comments in the code as guidelines (or for fun) for future programmers.
10. The Accidental Felon: on the history of the Morris worm, the self-replicating code that bought down many systems in the early days of the Internet.
11. Internet Relay Chat: From Fish-Slap to LOL: on the propagation of the culture of leaving 'actions' as words on the early internet relay chat into today's social media, leading to postings of LOLs and other kinds of interactive reactions, as well as emojis.
12. Hyperlink: The Idea That Led to Another, and Another, and Another: the history of hyperlinks, which lead people from one document to another, ad infinitum.
13 JPEG: The Unsung Hero in the Digital Revolution: how JPEG works to compress digital images and how this would lead to the fingerprinting of images to individual digital cameras.
14. The Viral Internet Image You've Never Seen: refers to the notorious single pixel image file that appears (hidden) on webpages and emails to track who is fetching the information.
15. The Pop-Up Ad: The Code That Made the Internet Worse: written by the person who wrote the first pop-up ad, it talks about taking responsiblity for what you do with technology.
16. Wear This Code, Go to Jail: starting with the Perl code for the RSA algorithm printed on a shirt, it goes on to shows the problems with trying to do export controls or to restrict software.
17. Needles in the World's Biggest Haystack: The Algorithm That Ranked the Internet: on the ranking algorithm that lauched Google.
18. A Failure to Interoperate: The Lost Mars Climate Orbiter: the Mars probe was lost due to conversion bug between metric and imperial measurements. But the article points to the bigger problem of the decline in interoperability of current day software and applications due to business decisions (to restrict competition).
19. The Code That Launched a Million Cat Videos: viral videos of cats reacting to the iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner helped to make it popular. But the software for the Roomba at the time, that controlled its somewhat random behaviour, also helped to make it beloved for the idiosyncratic way of cleaning a room.
20. Nakamoto's Prophecy: Bitcoin and the Revolution in Trust: on the development of bitcoin and the blockchain behind it that may yet revolutionize the way people trust one another and do business without a central authority.
21. The Curse of the Awesome Button: the development of Facebook's 'Like' button started off as a way to provide feedback on the social network. But it then became a way to track users as they moved from site to site.
22. The Bug No One Was Responsible For-Until Everyone Was: Heartbleed (a buffer overflow error in OpenSSH) was a programming error, but it showed the effects of using a popular piece of code but not providing proper support to the developers of the code.
23. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: How Digital Systems Can Be Used to Cheat: how software became a way to cheat and get around regulations.
24. The Code That Brought a Language Online: the development of software to allow users to enter text in Bangla after a terror attack in Bangladesh would have repercussions for blogging and freedom of expression in the country afterwards.
25. Telegram: The Platform That Became "the Internet" in Iran: Telegram enabled users in Iran to communicate and to broadcast messages in channels until it became Iranian's view of the Internet, for a while.
26. Encoding Gender: the issues around storing information on gender, when most databases are set up to only accept two binary gender values.
October 22, 2023
The book was certainly interesting to hear about some of the impact of historical code/decsions, but it is important to remember that each of these essays are 3-5 pages long and many fail to go into sufficient discussion to truly understand their significance.
It's a quick read, so worth reading once (and the essays all have citations which you can use for further research on topics of interest).
It's a quick read, so worth reading once (and the essays all have citations which you can use for further research on topics of interest).
January 7, 2023
Found many of the essays interesting although many were not really themed around single or a few lines of code. The essays on RSA and the first worm were more what I expected while others rambled a bit on tangential topics.
February 4, 2024
The best stories in here are the ones that actually are about a single line of code (the title entry), or a single moment when a section of code ran (the Apollo 11 one). Most of the others have a topic that's way too big for 5-6 pages so they fall flat.
January 5, 2023
You'd expect the book to be about computer history, but it's full of thinly veiled woke agenda. Don't bother.
March 1, 2025
does a good job of showing the fun and interesting side of computing science
May 23, 2023
[Imported automatically from . Some formatting there may not have translated here.]
A fun book, a collection of essays about coding. One of my main duties in my old job at the University Near Here. The topics are super diverse. The book’s title is taken from an amusing comment in the context-switching code in Version 6 UNIX back in the mid-70s. People thought it was meant to imply the associated code was tricky, obscure, and somewhat incomprehensible. (We’ve all seen code like that.) But the actual purpose was different, it seems.
What was, arguably, the very first line of code? “The answer may surprise you.�
There are essays about the origins of email, computer gaming (Spacewar!), Internet Relay Chat, JPEG, web bugs, popup ads, search engines, the “Like� button. Bitcoin. Roomba. The encryption algorithm Your Federal Government tried to classify as a “munition� and (unsuccessfully) suppress. Famous bugs: Heartbleed, the Morris Worm, the doomed Mars Climate Orbiter. The VW code that caused their diesel cars to cheat on emissions testing. The demise of databases that demanded a strict gender binary.
Unfortunately there are a couple clunkers. The essay on the development of BASIC starts: “During the first half of 1964, two college-age White men, …� If you see that as a warning flag that what follows will be remarkably tedious, you're correct: the author constructs a clumsy framework of racial grievance over boring old history. Almost as bad is “The Police Beat Algorithm�, a tendentious description of an effort to direct law enforcement most heavily toward locales and people with unusually high levels of crime. Surprise, this had a “disparate impact� on communities of color. The author takes this as prima facie evidence of nefarious racism instead of an effort to minimize victimization. The author doesn’t point out that the victims in high-crime areas are also disproportionately “Black and brown�.
Overall, though, an interesting read.
January 10, 2025
Unfortunately, most of my criticisms are parroting that of others for this book but I'll reiterate them anyway.
The name of this book is my first gripe because it is a complete misnomer. This book is not about 26 lines of code. It's really about 26 programs. But it's also really not about 26 programs because some of the essays that make up this book are actually just concepts? I get that this is really nitpicky but like a simple change to the title can make this make so much more sense.
Additionally, this book is very surface level. Like in one essay they explain what variables are and what a string, integer, and boolean are. I would not be upset if this book was 100 pages longer, (it was 168 as is), so each essay had 4 extra pages, (double the length), so that each topic has more room to really go in depth.
As other people have said, this book also bounces around a lot which I didn't really have a problem with, but what I did have a problem with was the editing. There was just a bit to be desired for me. For example, in a passage on a famous software vulnerability the essayist writes this,
Yeesh, that sucks. But then, not three sentences later, they write
It almost seems like a word was missing or maybe "the" should have been italicized to place emphasis on it, but without it, the sentence feels as though it is missing a word.
And lastly, while this book featured some interesting essays, others of them seriously missed the mark, especially ones that focused on social issues. Computing impacts are lives in innumerable ways and moments in history have had widespread, perennial impacts. This is not something I'm denying. But some of them were serious reaches.
Learned some interesting tidbits and stories about this book but wouldn't really recommend it to many people, especially CS friends of mine.
The name of this book is my first gripe because it is a complete misnomer. This book is not about 26 lines of code. It's really about 26 programs. But it's also really not about 26 programs because some of the essays that make up this book are actually just concepts? I get that this is really nitpicky but like a simple change to the title can make this make so much more sense.
Additionally, this book is very surface level. Like in one essay they explain what variables are and what a string, integer, and boolean are. I would not be upset if this book was 100 pages longer, (it was 168 as is), so each essay had 4 extra pages, (double the length), so that each topic has more room to really go in depth.
As other people have said, this book also bounces around a lot which I didn't really have a problem with, but what I did have a problem with was the editing. There was just a bit to be desired for me. For example, in a passage on a famous software vulnerability the essayist writes this,
Years after the discovery of Heartbleed, hundreds of thousands of devices and servers were still vulnerable.
Yeesh, that sucks. But then, not three sentences later, they write
Years after its discovery, the Heratbleed vulnerability had been fixed on most devices and websites, [...].Well wait a second, that is not what you just said. Another example of this sloppiness in another essay from a different author,
[Jean Sammet] wrote what is widely considered to be the textbook on the history and fundamentals of programming languages.
It almost seems like a word was missing or maybe "the" should have been italicized to place emphasis on it, but without it, the sentence feels as though it is missing a word.
And lastly, while this book featured some interesting essays, others of them seriously missed the mark, especially ones that focused on social issues. Computing impacts are lives in innumerable ways and moments in history have had widespread, perennial impacts. This is not something I'm denying. But some of them were serious reaches.
Learned some interesting tidbits and stories about this book but wouldn't really recommend it to many people, especially CS friends of mine.
January 24, 2024
I found this book in a social media post from the author, and it interested me. As a tester, I'm always curious of the 'why' behind code decisions, and this series of essays sounded like a good purchase.
And I am so glad I got this! The essays are a look at the who, and adds the perspective of a distance of time. This allows me to enjoy not only the peek into the person who wrote the code, but the circumstances that were happening in the world around them.
These are quick reads, with delightful, informative illustrations. That does not mean that they are light on content - each essay required a bit of time for me to think, learn, explore and in some cases - remember. The events covered in this book are not all 'old' history, some of these things may well have happened in your lifetime or very close to it.
I would highly suggest this for even non-technical people: these do have some technical details (or very complex math equations), but those are not the focus. The motivations and humans in the code are the focus, and how - in some cases - these have current and future effects on your life and experiences.
Every essay is well-written, and some even bring giggles. All-in-all, a very delightful read.
And I am so glad I got this! The essays are a look at the who, and adds the perspective of a distance of time. This allows me to enjoy not only the peek into the person who wrote the code, but the circumstances that were happening in the world around them.
These are quick reads, with delightful, informative illustrations. That does not mean that they are light on content - each essay required a bit of time for me to think, learn, explore and in some cases - remember. The events covered in this book are not all 'old' history, some of these things may well have happened in your lifetime or very close to it.
I would highly suggest this for even non-technical people: these do have some technical details (or very complex math equations), but those are not the focus. The motivations and humans in the code are the focus, and how - in some cases - these have current and future effects on your life and experiences.
Every essay is well-written, and some even bring giggles. All-in-all, a very delightful read.
February 18, 2024
/Audiobook/
This was a compilation of essays about significant moments, lines of codes, and inventions in computer science. It was a quick and easy read as most essays were short and didn't go too deep into any topic.
Even though I can't write code myself, I've been in that world for a while, which made the topic interesting. You get a bit of a history lesson about programmable machinery and how code came to be. There were many snippets and parts of the tech world that I hadn't thought about. For example, how email is a huge invention, even if we don't appreciate it daily.
I liked the story about how the 'like' button Facebook came to be, the original aim, and how it has changed marketing and politics worldwide. Or how the person who wrote the code for the first pop-up ad apologizes for the monster unleashed on the world. It was a bit scary to read about the bias in the tech used by the police.
I have learned about how important are comments in a code, but I had not heard about the "You're not expected to understand this" comment before, so another random piece of information that I found interesting.
So, overall, many short stories give you snippets of the coding world and its history which are mostly very easy to read (or listening).
This was a compilation of essays about significant moments, lines of codes, and inventions in computer science. It was a quick and easy read as most essays were short and didn't go too deep into any topic.
Even though I can't write code myself, I've been in that world for a while, which made the topic interesting. You get a bit of a history lesson about programmable machinery and how code came to be. There were many snippets and parts of the tech world that I hadn't thought about. For example, how email is a huge invention, even if we don't appreciate it daily.
I liked the story about how the 'like' button Facebook came to be, the original aim, and how it has changed marketing and politics worldwide. Or how the person who wrote the code for the first pop-up ad apologizes for the monster unleashed on the world. It was a bit scary to read about the bias in the tech used by the police.
I have learned about how important are comments in a code, but I had not heard about the "You're not expected to understand this" comment before, so another random piece of information that I found interesting.
So, overall, many short stories give you snippets of the coding world and its history which are mostly very easy to read (or listening).
December 27, 2024
This is a nice collection of 26 brief chapters with diverse viewpoints that looks at the intertwining of code and society. Some of the examples are well-known (Heartbleed, Volkswagen's cheating on emissions tests), or are by academics with some prominence (, ) or writers who are well-known authorities on technoculture (, ). Other essays are by online journalists and approach topics that have been under-reported in North America, at least, such as the introduction of JavaScript code to represent the Bangla language in blogs. Some of the essays bring the reader up-to-date on core technologies that have entered the discourse without enough historical situating (such as the blockchain). One thing I particularly liked about this book is that it mentions a lot of names of people who have not been celebrated for their contributions.
February 27, 2023
This compilation of essays is quite an enlightening bit of history. Sure, the Facebook like icon is noted therein by also thing such as the original pop-ups, multiprogramming and time sharing, NASA problems with conversion, LGBTQIA+ in Iran, and even gender encoding where the database frequently only uses the literal binary of boolean.
Of interest are the Spacewar, BASIC, Email, Apollo 11, and the lost Mars climate orbiter. The essay on Heartbleed is of particular historical interest since I was one of a team responsible for the cleanup of the fallout from trying to determine if anything has happened as a result of Heartbleed. The general rule was assume the worst and change everything - certificates, passwords, anything you can think of.
Note that this is really 170pp with acknowledgements. The rest is references and the book size of 216pp is wrong. It’s 202pp with the index for my edition.
Overall this is a good book of brief histories.
Of interest are the Spacewar, BASIC, Email, Apollo 11, and the lost Mars climate orbiter. The essay on Heartbleed is of particular historical interest since I was one of a team responsible for the cleanup of the fallout from trying to determine if anything has happened as a result of Heartbleed. The general rule was assume the worst and change everything - certificates, passwords, anything you can think of.
Note that this is really 170pp with acknowledgements. The rest is references and the book size of 216pp is wrong. It’s 202pp with the index for my edition.
Overall this is a good book of brief histories.
June 6, 2023
This book was all inspiring and credibly, authentic and eye-opening. I had no idea about all these different facets of technology history women empowerment Tori, Bosch really captured these absolutely unique niche moments of tech history and world, life-changing events that I would have never known about had I not read book.Just last year I took a software development Boot Camp to become a front end and back and engineer and this book opened my eyes to the history and really gave me such a foundation that I never would’ve had and a fundamental place to really revere the people who thought completely outside the box so we can have the technology that exists today. This book is written in a fun, exciting manner. Each chapter is its own story with its own personality, written by different people with different ideas, and in a way that anybody can understand.
June 19, 2023
Highly encourage, it was really fun and gave a really approachable introduction to a lot of famous and less famous computer problems that had major implications, social or otherwise. Kind of comically, the crypto essay feels out of place in terms of its vague motivation and unclear relevance. I think it does okay at explaining the original bitcoin paper but kind of fails to tie in a good purpose, and lost me a little bit. But no biggie. Overall great pop science. Doesn’t only cover the super obvious topics, good amount of detail, super easy read/listen.
The mediocre average rating seems to be because of people, based on reviews, who unironically DNFed the book when it mentioned women or sexism in tech and gave it one star. Lol.
The mediocre average rating seems to be because of people, based on reviews, who unironically DNFed the book when it mentioned women or sexism in tech and gave it one star. Lol.
June 21, 2024
I came for the history of technology and anecdotes, but stayed--admittedly somewhat reluctantly--for the social commentary. Which is not to say that the social commentary doesn't have merit: the best examples forced me to reconsider the conventional narrative, and even what I'd consider the lesser pieces had nuggets to take away.
But in all the essays were a scattershot experience and you'd need to have interest in both sinusoids in JPEG compression and a deconstruction of the Police Beat Algorithm and how it contributes to a distorted view of crime risk.
I would however recommend the piece relating to the Apollo 11 flight computer to anyone. Totally my jam.
But in all the essays were a scattershot experience and you'd need to have interest in both sinusoids in JPEG compression and a deconstruction of the Police Beat Algorithm and how it contributes to a distorted view of crime risk.
I would however recommend the piece relating to the Apollo 11 flight computer to anyone. Totally my jam.
January 4, 2023
Very disappointing book. Great premise of covering the trials and tribulations of the unending struggle of people writing software to program machines with results ranging from humorous to tragic to triumphant. Unfortunately only a few chapters cover this with the rest indistinguishable from Wikipedia and all lacking in both depth and original research. How do you have an entire chapter on BASIC without covering the now infamous GOTO statement? Where is the commentary on code comments containing profanity?
February 8, 2024
This is a collection of essays by professional writers, not by insiders working in tech. Reading these essays felt like authors spent an hour on Wikipedia on the first technology topic they found, then added a twist to push a social agenda. I was baited by the title and I should have read the reviews.
Authors seem to imply a line of code is a technology. What a joke. I was expecting 26 REAL lines of code that changed the world that were also incredibly difficult to understand, perhaps an algorithm as important as the fast Fourier transform, RSA or others.
Authors seem to imply a line of code is a technology. What a joke. I was expecting 26 REAL lines of code that changed the world that were also incredibly difficult to understand, perhaps an algorithm as important as the fast Fourier transform, RSA or others.
April 13, 2025
A thoroughly engaging anthology of articles. This is best understood to be a series of essays in cultural history with an emphasis on technological history and social history. It is not meant for a technically-minded audience (either in coding, or in academic history). Rather, we get in-depth stories about seminal events in the history of coding and/or technology and how they illuminate aspects of the history of the time. Some essays unpack questions related to race and gender. They do so in a way that felt entirely appropriate and defensible.
October 7, 2024
As a collection of articles, it’s good. As a book, it’s a bit long. Also I am very much the target audience (it’s all about how computers work and I swear half the essays mentioned MIT inventions) so I doubt most of my friends would enjoy this. I did enjoy hearing all the old timey stuff about the original computers, and I learned a decent amount of new information (which is not always the case when reading introductory material about computers these days).
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