[SIGCIS-Members] New essay on Kidder's Soul of a New Machine in CACM

Fri Dec 25 17:17:42 PST 2020

I too much enjoyed this elegant and provocative essay elucidating the ten qualities that make Kidder’s book so effective, especially “# 7, It’s Unashamedly Masculine,” and “#8, It Dramatizes Ordinary Engineering Work.” I hope Tom will let us know when the next two essays come out. “Halt and Catch Fire” (Netflix) is absolutely addictive, but I’ve had a hard time getting anyone else to watch it. So I look forward to his insights on that.

Barbara

From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of "Subramanian, Ramesh Prof." <Ramesh.Subramanian at quinnipiac.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 8:15 PM
To: "thomas.haigh at gmail.com" <thomas.haigh at gmail.com>, 'SIGCIS Listserver' <members at sigcis.org>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] New essay on Kidder's Soul of a New Machine in CACM

Oh, that's a beautiful essay, Tom! And does terrific justice to 'The Soul,' which I read as a student in India in 1983!

Thanks for sharing, and for documenting the cultural relevance of Kidder's book. It certainly advanced my own interests towards a career in computing!

I shall look forward to your follow-up essays on the series.

'Best,
-Ramesh

"...the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow." - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D.
Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Computer Information Systems
Quinnipiac University
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From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of thomas.haigh at gmail.com <thomas.haigh at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 12:18 PM
To: 'SIGCIS Listserver' <members at sigcis.org>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New essay on Kidder's Soul of a New Machine in CACM

Hello SIGCIS,

CACM has just published the first in what is supposed to be a trilogy of essays from me looking at classic representations of IT work. The first of these is “The Immortal Soul of an Old Machine,” inspired by the 40th anniversary of the publication of Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine. It's a book that developers and historians both continue to find fascinating, as a blending of literary craft and engineering practice. My aim is to take the book apart to see how it works and discover what it can tell us about how tech work has (and hasn’t) changed in four decades. I’ve been thinking about the book for almost thirty years, since reading it in the only Manchester University undergraduate computer science class that dealt with such things, and it was fun to go back with a new perspective to try to understand what makes it so readable and relatable.

The second will look at Levy’s book Hackers, with some discussion of relevant parts of Turkle’s more critical depiction in The Second Self. And the third part will explore Ullman’s Close to the Machine and the relatively recent TV show Halt and Catch Fire.

Unfortunately this wasn’t chosen as one of the paywall-free items for the current issue of CACM. Those of you with access might want to show your support for historical work by fetching it form the digital library via https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3436249<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdl.acm.org%2Fdoi%2F10.1145%2F3436249&data=04%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7C84bb66b0be5446b5db7608d8a6f96504%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1%7C0%7C637442937373149800%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=%2BnF%2F1IiejNtrtI2kb1I9jMHaZRlJwN%2FqZ5T5ZHNCwZ4%3D&reserved=0>. But for everyone else, you can get a copy at https://tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACMSoulOfANewMachine.pdf<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftomandmaria.com%2FTom%2FWriting%2FCACMSoulOfANewMachine.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7C84bb66b0be5446b5db7608d8a6f96504%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1%7C0%7C637442937373159787%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=M%2FXMWCLoePkZiPhwEWNGEBfVEGZsacpCgE62bccvxt4%3D&reserved=0>.

Best wishes,

Tom

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