"You Are Not Expected to Understand This"

How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World

Paperback, 208 pages

Published Nov. 14, 2022 by Princeton University Press.

ISBN:
978-0-691-20848-0
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4 stars (1 review)

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 …

1 edition

A good collection of essays on coding.

4 stars

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 …