From: Sal Denaro <sal@panix.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:51:25 -0800 (PST)
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: FCPUNX:'close to the machine'
In-Reply-To: <199802192206.RAA15832@anon7.pfmc.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.980223122738.19055D-100000@panix3.panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 15 Feb 1998, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
> fun new book: "close to the machine" by Ellen Ullman. anybody
> here seen/read it? a highly
> personal and emotional book at times about working in the computer 
> industry.  author is a software engineer whose done a lot of contract
> work. I think many here will find it worth a look and/or worth

I read it. After a while I noticed that I had a lot in common with
the young programmer that she had an affair with. 

It took a while to come to terms with being a "type" :)

There were two things about the book that I disliked:

1) Macho-computing. A number of consultants tend to act as if they are
   sliting the atom or landing a man on the moon as they work. While I
   agree that programming is hard work, and that a lot of what programmers
   do is on the edge, it is hardly ground breaking to implement YA DBMS,
   even if it is Java based and web-centric.

2) I think she was tring to hard to look technical.  

--
sal@panix.com                                       Salvatore Denaro
"The reality of the software business today is that if you find
something that can make you ridiculously rich, then that's something
that Microsoft is going to take away from you." -- Max Metral