- Paperback: 189 pages
- Publisher: City Lights Publishers (Jan 1 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0872863328
- ISBN-13: 978-0872863323
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#1,159,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Books > Computers & Internet > Business & Culture > Careers
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
If there is such a thing as a typical computer programmer, Ellen Ullman is not it. She's female, a former communist, bisexual, old enough to be a twentysomething's mom, and not a nerd. She runs her own computer-consulting business in San Francisco and in Close to the Machine explores a world in which "the real world and its uses no longer matter." This memoir examines the relationship between human and machine, between material and cyberworlds and reminds us that the body and soul exist before and after any machine. The wit Ullman brings to her National Public Radio commentaries shines through in the prose.
Review
"Astonishing…Impossible to put down."---San Francisco Chronicle
"Close to the Machine may be the best---it’s certainly the most human---book to have emerged thus far from the culture of Silicon Valley. Ullman is that rarity, a computer programmer with a poet’s feeling for language."---Laura Miller, Salon
"Part memoir, part techie mantra, part observation on the ever-changing world of computer science…[Ullman is] a strong woman standing up to, and facing down, ‘obsolescence’ in two different, particularly unforgiving worlds---modern technology and modern society."---The New York Times Book Review "Fascinating…Chock-full of delicately profound insights into work, money, love, and the search for a life that matters."---Newsweek "Ullman comes with her tech bona fides intact (she is, after all, a seasoned software engineer). But she also comes with novel material….We see the seduction at the heart of programming: embedded in the hijinks and hieroglyphics are the esoteric mysteries of the human mind."---Wired
"This book is a little masterpiece….I have never read anything like it."---Andrei Codrescu
"For someone sitting so close to the machine, Ellen Ullman possesses a remarkably wide-angle perspective on the technology culture she inhabits."---The Village Voice
"Part memoir, part techie mantra, part observation on the ever-changing world of computer science…[Ullman is] a strong woman standing up to, and facing down, ‘obsolescence’ in two different, particularly unforgiving worlds---modern technology and modern society."---The New York Times Book Review "Fascinating…Chock-full of delicately profound insights into work, money, love, and the search for a life that matters."---Newsweek "Ullman comes with her tech bona fides intact (she is, after all, a seasoned software engineer). But she also comes with novel material….We see the seduction at the heart of programming: embedded in the hijinks and hieroglyphics are the esoteric mysteries of the human mind."---Wired
"This book is a little masterpiece….I have never read anything like it."---Andrei Codrescu
"For someone sitting so close to the machine, Ellen Ullman possesses a remarkably wide-angle perspective on the technology culture she inhabits."---The Village Voice
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tedious, boring and insulting.,
By Sickness23 "anonymous coward A.C." (Antarctica) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents (Paperback)
There is really nothing to this book. When I finally finished it I was like "That was it?" Aside from the lack of any kind of interesting or engaging plot I found the very stereotypical charicterizations of programmers to be insulting. I get the feeling that the author is one of those "non-geek" programmers who (incorrectly) thinks that she understands true geek culture and secretly thinks she is better than the geeks.
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intimate "The Soul of a New Machine",
By
This review is from: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents (Paperback)
Ellen Ullmann has created a wonderful novel about the awkward interfaces between programmers and users, programming and aging, and technology and humanity. The first chapter's description of the addiction on shared mind during small team development is a wonder.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Some pros, but mostly cons,
By owlberg (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents (Paperback)
Ellen Ullman is obviously an adept coder and is able to describe both the great highs and great lows of being "close to the machine". However, as an actual author, she's a bit tedious and occasionally eye-rollingly vapid: her surprisingly generic sex scenes seem like quick masturbatory breaks, almost as if she felt the need to remind us that "programmers have sex lives, too". And she shows some occasional touches of her own techno-fear, especially when disparaging the nomenclature on a web-browser's interface (she pooh-poohs the usage of "home" on the browser, apparenly forgetting that "home" has also been the traditional name for users' directories on UNIX systems). Probably a good head-nodding read for legacy techies, the post-web generation will most likely sigh "Oh, get OVER yourself" a few times before flinging this one across the room and going back to reading WIRED.
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