New Book on Software History
SIGCIS, I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled Software: A Technical History 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: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339. It is also available via Amazon<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145038725X/> and Barnes and Noble<https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/software-kim-w-tracy/1140205842?ean=9781450387255>. 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. 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. I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write. SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . . Thanks, --Kim Kim W. Tracy Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering (pronouns: he, him) ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999 Room: Moench D216 | tracy@rose-hulman.edu<mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060 www.rose-hulman.edu<http://www.rose-hulman.edu>
What a great topic to write on. Also, you may have picked the perfect publisher for this book. Congrats on both accounts. Jim Cortada On Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 1:06 PM Tracy, Kim <tracy@rose-hulman.edu> wrote:
SIGCIS,
I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled *Software: A Technical History* 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: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339. It is also available via Amazon <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145038725X/> and Barnes and Noble <https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/software-kim-w-tracy/1140205842?ean=9781450387255>. 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.
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.
I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write.
SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . .
Thanks,
--Kim
*Kim W. Tracy *
Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering
(pronouns: he, him)
*ROSE**-HULMAN* *INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY*
5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999
Room: Moench D216 | tracy@rose-hulman.edu
Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060
www.rose-hulman.edu
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, 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 http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
-- James W. Cortada Senior Research Fellow Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota jcortada@umn.edu 608-274-6382
Congrats, Kim! Looks Like a very useful book! I'll be sure to check it out for one of my graduate electives! -Ramesh “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”- Prof. Albert Allen Bartlett --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D. Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Information Systems Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT 06511, USA Email: ramesh.subramanian@qu.edu Web: https://www.qu.edu/faculty-and-staff/ramesh-subramanian & Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School New Haven, CT 06511, USA Email: ramesh.subramanian@yale.edu Web: https://www.law.yale.edu/ramesh-subramanian Recent book: Mobile Technology and Social Transformations<https://www.routledge.com/Mobile-Technology-and-Social-Transformations-Access-to-Knowledge-in-Global/Felsberger-Subramanian/p/book/9780367545246>, Routledge, UK (2021) ________________________________ From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Tracy, Kim <tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Sent: Monday, October 4, 2021 2:06 PM To: members@sigcis.org <members@sigcis.org> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New Book on Software History CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not follow guidance, click links, or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. SIGCIS, I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled Software: A Technical History 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: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdl.acm.org%2Fdoi%2Fbook%2F10.1145%2F3477339&data=04%7C01%7Cramesh.subramanian%40quinnipiac.edu%7Cd8931dc4abf649a1027308d98761bd90%7C0940985869fb4de9987990db22b52eaf%7C0%7C1%7C637689676148463802%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=0zQ0okeB3HFhNNTTmaXBsIOxrMw45j6Il3ad%2BCOcsuI%3D&reserved=0>. It is also available via Amazon<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F145038725X%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cramesh.subramanian%40quinnipiac.edu%7Cd8931dc4abf649a1027308d98761bd90%7C0940985869fb4de9987990db22b52eaf%7C0%7C1%7C637689676148473796%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=G4LvweS3fhsFb9SitHMg%2FjvV3h3EcmgvBpGjIsWF5YY%3D&reserved=0> and Barnes and Noble<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.barnesandnoble.com%2Fw%2Fsoftware-kim-w-tracy%2F1140205842%3Fean%3D9781450387255&data=04%7C01%7Cramesh.subramanian%40quinnipiac.edu%7Cd8931dc4abf649a1027308d98761bd90%7C0940985869fb4de9987990db22b52eaf%7C0%7C1%7C637689676148473796%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=WW6Lxcv9Inw5ysX8rbsBc38OFIYVQ9%2BTTE%2FlDBsj%2BNQ%3D&reserved=0>. 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. 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. I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write. SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . . Thanks, --Kim Kim W. Tracy Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering (pronouns: he, him) ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999 Room: Moench D216 | tracy@rose-hulman.edu<mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060 www.rose-hulman.edu<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rose-hulman.edu%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cramesh.subramanian%40quinnipiac.edu%7Cd8931dc4abf649a1027308d98761bd90%7C0940985869fb4de9987990db22b52eaf%7C0%7C1%7C637689676148483798%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=8u07x1YMsvn8O2oeb4QFBBlZ1vU4WTGpLyMzHVBMdlk%3D&reserved=0>
congrats, i've already downloaded and looking forward! looks very thorough! Sent from my iPhone; forgive my terseness
On Oct 4, 2021, at 12:12, Subramanian, Ramesh Prof. <Ramesh.Subramanian@quinnipiac.edu> wrote:
Congrats, Kim! Looks Like a very useful book! I'll be sure to check it out for one of my graduate electives!
-Ramesh
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”- Prof. Albert Allen Bartlett
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D. Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Information Systems Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT 06511, USA Email: ramesh.subramanian@qu.edu Web: https://www.qu.edu/faculty-and-staff/ramesh-subramanian & Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School New Haven, CT 06511, USA Email: ramesh.subramanian@yale.edu Web: https://www.law.yale.edu/ramesh-subramanian
Recent book: Mobile Technology and Social Transformations, Routledge, UK (2021)
From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Tracy, Kim <tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Sent: Monday, October 4, 2021 2:06 PM To: members@sigcis.org <members@sigcis.org> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New Book on Software History
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not follow guidance, click links, or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
SIGCIS,
I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled Software: A Technical History 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: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339. It is also available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 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.
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.
I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write.
SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . .
Thanks, --Kim
Kim W. Tracy Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering (pronouns: he, him) ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999 Room: Moench D216 | tracy@rose-hulman.edu Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060 www.rose-hulman.edu
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, 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 http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
This looks great. I just bought a copy and look forward to reading it. Best, -Warren Warren SACK Professor, Film + Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz Editorial Group Member, *Computational Culture: A Journal of Software Studies* Book: *The Software Arts* (MIT Press, 2019) https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-arts On Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 11:06 AM Tracy, Kim <tracy@rose-hulman.edu> wrote:
SIGCIS,
I’m pleased announce my book on software history has been published with ACM Books. It is titled *Software: A Technical History* 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: https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3477339. It is also available via Amazon <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145038725X/> and Barnes and Noble <https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/software-kim-w-tracy/1140205842?ean=9781450387255>. 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.
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.
I’d appreciate any feedback on it, and, of course, any Amazon or Barnes and Noble reviews you’d be willing to write.
SIGCIS has helped provide a lot of interesting examples over the years, some of which you may recognize as exercises. . . .
Thanks,
--Kim
*Kim W. Tracy *
Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering
(pronouns: he, him)
*ROSE**-HULMAN* *INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY*
5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999
Room: Moench D216 | tracy@rose-hulman.edu
Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.872.6060
www.rose-hulman.edu
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, 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 http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
participants (5)
-
Armando Fox -
James Cortada -
Subramanian, Ramesh Prof. -
Tracy, Kim -
Warren Sack