[PREV - BITWASTES_ANTIPOP]    [TOP]

BITWASTES_BEGINNINGS

                                                     October 21, 2021     
                                                                          
Some first impressions of                                                
"Bitwise: A Life in Code" (2018)                        FIRST13
by David Auerbach

Right off the bat, Auerbach delievers a quotable quote:

    "Computers always offered me a world that made sense."

And then we launch right into:
                                                        SMALL_BITES
    "As a child, I sought refuge in
    computers as a safe, contemplative
    realm far from the world.  People       This may just be the
    confused me.  Computers were precise    view of Auerbach the
    and comprehensible.  On the ONE         child.  It's not clear
    hand, the underspecified and elusive    to me if he's supposed
    world of beings; on the other, the      to have overcome it.
    regimented world of code."
                                               This is-- or was?-- certainly the
                                               experience of many programmers:
                                               software as an refuge for the
                                               anti-social-- or a refuge from
                                               a society that feels broken?


But software is something created by human           
beings, in cooperation with other human           This complicates the          
beings, for (one hopes) the use of other          field quite a bit:  
human beings.  This division between the                      
fuzzy human realm and the hard-edged world        Software is a collaborative
of bits really doesn't work.                      social process engaged-in
                                                  by very anti-social people.
   "I had tried to make sense of the              
   real world, but couldn't.  Many                At least traditionally that
   programmers can.  They navigate                was the case: We may be
   relationships, research politics,              getting into the opposite
   and engage with works of art as                problem now-- a generation
   analytically and surgically as                 has been taught that
   they do code."                                 computers are the way you
                                                  get rich, and we've got a
No, no, no.  *No one* can do this,                group of young programmers
it's just that there are some people              who are if anything *too*
who don't *need* to, they're the                  socially adept.  Asking for
naturals, the people who can just                 help comes easily to them,
intuitively make moves that work well             going off into a corner and
enough with "the real world" that to              thinking by themselves for
someone like Auerbach it looks like               days would be an alien
they're in touch with some secret                 experience.
wisdom.

          If the adult Auerbach
          *still* doesn't see this,
          it's not a good sign.




--------
[NEXT - BITWASTES_PLATONESQUE]