[.uk] The Bug (ISBN 1400032350)

Debugging Life:
This is one of the most impressive novels I've read in the last few years. It takes on issues of love, hate, ego and the much written about "human condition" and views them through what to most outsiders seems the most inhuman world of computer technology and software engineering. It takes the reader into the soul of the machine as only a few non-fiction works have previously done - "The Soul Of The New Machine" and Clifford Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg" spring to mind - and weaves a very human story of love, betrayal and madness around and within it. Ullman's writing is clean, precise and emotionally spot-on, her characters are all too real to anyone who has worked in the software industry. Ethan Levin, software engineer lost between the world of dbx, cc and his broken relationships with human beings, is finely drawn and involving. A flawed tragic character descending into a madness Shakespeare would have recognised instantly. Roberta the software tester and former linguist who becomes a programmer as Ethan decays in front of her is also tragic, lost and very human, if more capable than Ethan of introspection and thus survival. The wisdom with popular science books is that for every equation they contain the readership is cut in half. I would have thought things would be at least as bad for a novel that contains C code... but not in this case. Ullman fits the technical explanations and some code into the text with admirable dexterity and clarity that anyone should be able to follow. It was a very brave course to take, it could easily have ended up as an indigestible geeky info dump, but she pulls it off extremley well. Her ability to see the world and relationships through the eyes of men is quite spooky at times, particularly men caught up in the challenges, excitement and self-absorbtion that can be found in the world of code and debugging. She ties it all back to our essential humanity and analog vs digtal world views in a satisfying conclusion. This is one hell of a book.

You Get What You Work For:
I think that the highest compliment I can pay this book is that the months that have passed since I read it have not dimmed my memory of the story. Background: I was headed for a career as a computer programmer but got sidetracked into law school--so the coding process, complete with the obsessive focus on debugging, is not foreign to me. The story is creepy because it seems so real and it hit this reader at least kind of close to home; sometimes we allow short-term goals to eclipse more important endeavors, for which we pay a price. "The Bug" is the story of a guy who just loses it. This book's impact derives from the juxtaposition of the protagonist's search for what is later revealed to be a very simple error in computer code with what we come to see as an equally simple flaw in the protagonists own outlook on life. By obsessively focusing on his own needs for accomplishment or satisfaction, Ms. Ullman chronicles her main character's descent into despair and allows us the omniscience to see what was happening. It is a slow motion train wreck. Good fiction allows us to experience vicariously that which we hope to never experience in reality. Anyone who reads this book will feel better about their own life and will determine to do better. Isn't that a good measure of a successful work of art?

Magnificent ô Writing:
I read Close to the machine which was quite good, on the border of being more than that (imho) if more bits - more flesh ? - had been added. But this one, this complete labyrinth picture of what's a geek life in a bug life just took me in the fantastic twirlof bits equal sentences equal pix equal ah the soul. Yes the soul! Binary and pounding like screen beats in the bl00d of game - life side. Ah wow. Thank you Ellen U. A total documented thrill. A superb strings quartet of writing. Made code comments a real adventure... And Did I spot the correct deep effects too? Oh I certainly witnessed something happening in the back of it all. I glimpsed the fast reflections in the golden eye of the page. This book is a grand sexy book too in one word. And doesn't it make every reader to know more about programming too? Ah yes. That too. - Warmly recommended.

I stopped reading just before the last chapter:
My review may be viased by my everyday job. I couldn't stand it anymore, and I had to stop reading just before the last chapter. So I don't really know how it ends, but guess what? I don't care

Geek fun reading:
I enjoyed reading this book. Learning a little about the stereo-typical geek programmers -- 'meep.' The author's approach is at times humorous and provides a learning experience about how some programmers work and how computer programs are created and corrected in a non-technical way This learning experience is woven well into the story line. This book is a VAST improvement on the author's other work: Close to the Machine -- which I wouldn't recommend reading or wasting your time on.