<div dir="ltr">What a great topic to write on. Also, you may have picked the perfect publisher for this book. Congrats on both accounts. Jim Cortada</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 1:06 PM Tracy, Kim <<a href="mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu">tracy@rose-hulman.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">
<div class="gmail-m_-8994027790246658933WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">SIGCIS,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled
<i>Software: A Technical History</i> and is a textbook for students of computing to understand the history of software. If you have access to the ACM Digital Library (DL), then you likely already have free access to it:
<a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339" target="_blank">https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339</a>. It is also available via
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145038725X/" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/software-kim-w-tracy/1140205842?ean=9781450387255" target="_blank">
Barnes and Noble</a>. It’s only $34.95 as a paperback, but I’m hoping most students studying computing will have free access through their institution’s ACM DL subscription.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wrote the book because I started teaching the history of computation as a special topics course and it became clear to me that much of the most important part, software, was barely covered in most texts from a technical point of view.
I began developing my own materials and it became clear that not only was this material not covered in most curricula, it was becoming increasingly important as students build on layers of pre-existing software without much understanding of how it was built
or its design assumptions. Students studying computer security are faced with these layers of pre-existing software that are often put to unpredicted uses which exposes new vulnerabilities. An intent is that students will be able to better reason about
software as a technology and better predict where it is going, why it succeeds, and why it fails. I include as many exercises as I could so that students can explore interesting corners of software history that I couldn’t cover in the book.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . .</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--Kim </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Kim W. Tracy
</span></b><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">(</span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">pronouns<span style="color:black">: he, him)<u></u><u></u></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:rgb(192,0,0)">ROSE</span></b><b><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:black">-HULMAN</span></b><b><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></b><b><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY</span></b><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:-webkit-standard,serif;color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Room: Moench D216 |
</span><a href="mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,99,193)">tracy@rose-hulman.edu</span></a><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">
</span><span style="font-size:11.5pt;color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Phone: <b> </b>812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060</span><span style="font-size:11.5pt;color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,99,193)">www.rose-hulman.edu</span></a><span style="color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a href="http://sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>James W. Cortada</div><div>Senior Research Fellow</div>
<div>Charles Babbage Institute</div><div>University of Minnesota</div>
<div><a href="mailto:jcortada@umn.edu" target="_blank">jcortada@umn.edu</a></div>
<div>608-274-6382</div></div></div>