Sean Randall reviewed The Bug by Ellen Ullman
Review of 'The Bug' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
"a kind of obsessional energy that was nonetheless pleasingly addictive. As the examples and assignments became harder, I began making errors, having trouble getting code to compile, link, run. Yet this trouble only drew me in, created in me a fierce determination to get it working. I had never before built anything—not a tree house, not a soapbox racer; I’d never even been able to finish a woven pot holder. I was bad with my hands and I lived in my head, and for me there was only one way to build something: programming."
This paragraph certainly sounded very familiar. The whole atmosphere of the work is gripping and thrilling on a couple of levels. We've all, of course, personified bugs in our code, but to see the effects of that on a whole team of coders and testers is quite scary. Then to look back at the systems and …
"a kind of obsessional energy that was nonetheless pleasingly addictive. As the examples and assignments became harder, I began making errors, having trouble getting code to compile, link, run. Yet this trouble only drew me in, created in me a fierce determination to get it working. I had never before built anything—not a tree house, not a soapbox racer; I’d never even been able to finish a woven pot holder. I was bad with my hands and I lived in my head, and for me there was only one way to build something: programming."
This paragraph certainly sounded very familiar. The whole atmosphere of the work is gripping and thrilling on a couple of levels. We've all, of course, personified bugs in our code, but to see the effects of that on a whole team of coders and testers is quite scary. Then to look back at the systems and tools of the day and to see actually that the testing procedures still work today. TO see another ploughing through Kernighan and Ritchie's book with such evident enjoyment was gratifying, and the last chapter was almost elegiac. SO not a book for everyone, as is so often the case, but with a splendid couple of characters, a dollop of nostalgia and a glimpse into the shadowy world of the computer program too.
