Readings General Computing Milieux

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Readings in Personal Computing
Readings in Computer Science

Readings in Software Engineering

Readings in System Architecture and Design

Readings in Trust and Trustworthy Computing
Readings in Being and Empowerment
Readings in Philosophy

[Abrahams1997]

Abrahams, Paul W.  A World Without Work.  Chapter 11, pp. 135-147 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
   

[Bell1997]

Bell, Gordon., Gray, James N.  The Revolution Yet to Happen.  Chapter 1, pp. 5-32 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
     2000-07-18 (orcmid): There is an interesting argument that paper was our first computer along with recognition of the serious problems of preservation and accessibility when paper is replaced by electronic documents.  This is the first place I have seen Metcalfe's Law.  My notes are here.
   

[Borg2001]

Borg, Anita.  Universal Literacy--A Challenge for Computing in the 21st Century.  Comm. ACM 44, 3 (March 2001), 139-141.
     Fifty women leaders in technology met and explored questions about the issues we face.  The outcome was formulation of the "Grand Societal Challenge for Computing: Universal Literacy."
   

[Crichton2002]

Crichton, Michael.  Prey.  HarperCollins (New York: 2002).  ISBN 0-06-621412-2.
     2003-03-02: I just put the book down.  It is very appropriate that it be entered here.   It raises the prospect of the confluence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer technology in ways that some seem to be clamoring for.  
     It seems clear that we are not at all prepared to deal with rapidly-adapting (I dare not say evolving) emergent behavior.  I have lately heard the lament/apology that we can't test business software systems successfully because of the unexpected combinations of usage these days.  Well, in Crichton's scenario, we haven't seen anything yet!  
     At the same time, I see extensive work on providing autonomy in the workings of computer systems as a way to deal with failures and recovery, among other things.  There are those who look optimistically at the prospect of our being on the brink of establishing machine intelligence.  There is much to glean.  I am reminded of the punch line in Jurassic Park: "Nature finds a way."  I just wonder how that applies here, and what it says for us and our destiny.
   

[Denning1997]

Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Foreword by James Burke.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).  ISBN 0-387-98588-3 pbk.
     2000-07-18 (orcmid): I bought this book because it has a paper by Fernando Flores, whose work I have heard about through an entirely different avenue.   I am also interested in coherence, and the lack thereof, in computer systems.  I am not happy with the inscrutability of our technology.  I am also keen on having the programming of computers be accessible to anyone who uses computers.  I don't mean necessarily effortless.  I mean accessible.  Acquisition of this book, and actually reading it, has been very well-timed.  The chapters that I find particularly valuable are cited separately.
   Content
     Foreword (James Burke)
     Preface (Denning and Metcalfe)
     Acknowledgments
     Part I.   The Coming Revolution
          1. Gordon Bell and James N. Gray.  The Revolution Yet to Happen [1997]
          2. Vinton G. Cerf: When They're Everywhere
          3. Bob Frankston: Beyond Limits [1997]
          4. Edsger W. Dijkstra: The Tide, Not the Waves [1997]
          5. Richard W. Hamming: How to Think About Trends [1997]
          6. Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown: The Coming Age of Calm Technology
     Part II.  Computers and Human Identity
          7. Sherry Turkle: Growing Up in the Culture of Simulation [1997]
          8. Donald Norman: Why It's Good That Computers Don't Work Like the Brain
          9. David Gelernter: The Logic of Dreams
          10. Franz L. Alt: End-Running Human Intelligence
          11. Paul W. Abrahams: A World Without Work [1997]
          12. Terry Winograd: The Design of Interaction [1997]
     Part III.  Business and Innovation
          13. Bob O. Evans: The Stumbling Titan
          14. Fernando Flores: The Leaders of the Future [1997]
          15. Larry Druffel: Information Warfare
          16. Abbe Mowshowitz: Virtual Feudalism
          17. Donald D. Chamberlain: Sharing Our Planet
          18. William J. Mitchell and Oliver Strimpel: There and Not There
          19. Dennis Tsichritzis: The Dynamics of Innovation
          20. Peter J. Denning: How We Will Learn
     Contributors
     Glossary
     Index
   

[Denning1999]

Denning, Peter J. (ed.)  Talking Back to the Machine: Computers and Human Aspiration. Introductions by James Burke.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1999).  ISBN 0-387-98413-5.
   Content
     Preface: Then Now (Denning)
     Preface: Opening Connections (Burke)
     1. Gordon Bell: The folly of Prediction
     2. Carver Mead: Life Without Bits
     3. Joel Birnbaum: Alternative Computing
     4. Pattie Maes: Very Personal Computers
     5. Nathan Myhrvold: I, Software
     6. Bran Ferren: The Lost Art of Storytelling
     7. William Perry: The Digital Battlefield
     8. Fernando FLores: Entering the Age of Convenience
     9. Vinton G. Cerf: In the Belly of the Net
     10. Brenda Laurel: When Computers Become Human
     11. Maurice Wilkes: A Half Century of Surprises
     12. Elliot Soloway: The  Interactive Classroom
     13. Reed Hundt: Delivering Bandwidth Like Pizza
     14. Bruce Sterling: Weird Futures
     15. Raj Reddy: Teleportation, Time Travel, and Immortality
     16. Murray Gell-Mann: Pulling Diamonds from the Clay
     James Burk: Closing Connections
     David J. Kasik: The Relics of '97
     Index
   

[Dijkstra1997]

Dijkstra, Edsger W.  The Tide, Not the Waves.  Chapter 4, pp. 59-64 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
    "It is time to unmask the computing community as a Secret Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity."  Dijkstra sees us taking an unsustainable course, one that we will have had to deal with in the next 50 years (1998-2047).
   

[Flores1986]

Winograd, T., Flores, F.  Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design.  Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA: 1986, 1987).  ISBN 0-201-11297-3.  See [Winograd1986]
   

[Flores1997]

Flores, Fernando.  The Leaders of the Future.  Chapter 14, pp. 176-192 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
     Sees us at the intersection of three eras of our understanding of computers: computers as information-processing machines, computers as communication devices, and computers as the medium in which companies and individuals articulate and shift their identities.  This is claimed to fit with the notion of an enterprise as a network of commitments, and the emergence of computers as instruments for people coordinating their actions and managing their commitments.
   

[Frankston1997]

Frankston, Bob.  Beyond Limits.  Chapter 3, pp. 43-57 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
      My notes are here.
   

[Glenn2001]

Glenn, John.  Education is the Key to Future Dreams.  Comm. ACM 44, 3 (March 2001), 137-138.
     "Building and maintaining a world-class education system that serves all of our children is as much a civic duty as voting.  It is a responsibility that belongs to everyone--educators, elected officials, business and civic leaders, good citizens.  Our earlier progress in space was not happenstance; it flowed from the visionary intelligence of our scientific pioneers and came about only because of an unrelenting and generous commitment of our collective energies and resources.  That same spirit is no less needed now ... ."
   

[Gray1997]

Bell, Gordon., Gray, James N.  The Revolution Yet to Happen.  Chapter 1, pp. 5-32 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).  See [Bell1997]
   

[Hamming1997]

Hamming, Richard W.  How to Think About Trends.  Chapter 5, pp. 65-74 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
   

[Knuth2001]

Knuth, Donald Ervin.  Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About.  Foreword by Anne Foerst.  CSLI Lecture Notes Number 136.  CSLI Publications (Stanford, CA: 2001).  ISBN 1-57586-326-X pbk.
     This book is a great gift from the author.  I have known of Donald Knuth since at least 1961 (when I met Joe Speroni as his proxy at a meeting on Smalgol, though I may have already heard of Runcible).   I enjoyed working with DEK, Joe, and Bill Lynch for a short time the following year.  I have followed The Art of Computer Programming since its first editions, and many other works as well.  The humility that Don brings to his spirituality and his relationship to it as a computer scientist is very touching.  I think we lose something when we miss the connection of the human being and the spirit in which scientific perspectives and contributions arise.  Here is a very gentle exposure to how gentle humanity has played in Knuth's life and in his eagerness and devotion to his art.  Thanks Don.  
     There is further information at <http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/things.html>.
   Content
     Foreword: Meeting God at MIT, Anne Foerst
     Lecture 1: Introduction
     Lecture 2: Randomization and Religion
     Lecture 3: Language Translation
     Lecture 4: Aesthetics
     Lecture 5: Glimpses of God
     Lecture 6: God and Computer Science
     Panel: Creativity, Spirituality, and Computer Science (Harry Lewis, Guy L. Steele, Jr., Manuela Velosa, Mitch Kapor, and DEK)
     Index
   

[MacKenzie1998]

MacKenzie, Donald A.  Computers and the Sociology of Mathematical Proof.  Prepared for Northern Formal Methods Workshop, Ilkley, September 1998.  Edinburgh University Department of Sociology.  Published on-line.  See Trust and Trustworthy Computing
   

[MacKenzie2001]

MacKenzie, Donald A.  Mechanizing Proof: Computing, Risk, and Trust.  MIT Press (Cambridge, MA: 2001).  Inside Technology Series.  ISBN 0-262-13393-8 hard cover, alkaline paper.  See Trust and Trustworthy Computing
   

[Metcalfe1997]

Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).  ISBN 0-387-98588-3 pbk.  See [Denning1997]
   

[Petzold2000]

Petzold, Charles.  Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software.  Microsoft Press (Redmond, WA: 2000).  ISBN 0-7356-1131-9 pbk.
     "I want Code to to be a book that makes you understand [computer principles and technology], not in some abstract way, but with a depth that just might even rival that of electrical engineers and programmers.  I also hope that you might recognize the computer to be one of the crowning achievements of twentieth century technology and appreciate it as a beautiful thing in itself without metaphors and similes getting in the way. ...

     "So, while Code goes fairly deep into the workings of the computer (few other books show how computer processors actually work, for example), the pace is fairly relaxed.  Despite the depth, I tried to make the trip as comfortable as possible." -- From the Preface, p.v.
   Content
     Preface to the Paperback Edition
     1. Best Friends
     2. Codes and Combinations
     3. Braille and Binary Codes
     4. Anatomy of a Flashlight
     ...
     23. Fixed Point, Floating Point
     24. Languages, High and Low
     25. The Graphical Revolution
     Acknowledgments
     Bibliography
     Index
     About the Author
     Colophon
    

[Resnick2001]

Resnick, Mitchel.  Closing the Fluency Gap.  Comm. ACM 44, 3 (March 2001), 144-145.
     "We need to generate a new generation of computer technologies worthy of the next generation of children."
     " ... Access alone is not enough.  The goal must be fluency for everyone.  That will require new attitudes about computing--and new attitudes about learning."
   

[Schank2001]

Schank, Roger C.  The Computer isn't the Medium, It's the Message.  Comm. ACM 44, 3 (March 2001), 142-143.
     "... When the ancient Jews wanted to educate the masses, they read to them every Saturday from the sacred scrolls.  This made sense because most people couldn't read and there were very few scrolls.  Today everyone can read and there are a lot of scrolls.  Why hasn't the method of instruction changed?  Because we have somehow gotten it into our heads that the means of instruction available in 1500 B.C. was right.  It isn't and we need to get over it."
     "... Computer scientists need to envision environments they can create in which the skills one needs in life can be practiced.  They need to find ways to build such environments in cost-effective ways while still allowing them to be realistic."
   [dh:2002-02-20: Driving by here while cleaning up some page presentation items, I notice that I do accept the notion of what computer scientists could provide, and the desirability of that, though I am not so enrolled that we have been doing it wrong or that there is a magic fix.  Time to review this.]
   

[Turkle1997]

Sherry Turkle.  Growing Up in the Culture of Simulation.  Chapter 7, pp. 94-104 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).
   

[Winograd1986]

Winograd, T., Flores, F.  Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design.  Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA: 1986, 1987).  ISBN 0-201-11297-3.
     "In one sense, then, this book is about computers.  But it reaches beyond the specific issues of what computers can do.  Our larger goal is to clarify the background of understanding in which the discourse about computers and technologies takes place, and to grasp its broader implications.  Ultimately we are seeking a better understanding of what it means to be human.  In this quest, progress is not made by finding the 'right answers,' but by asking meaningful questions--ones that evoke an openness to new ways of being.  We invite the readers to create with us an openness that can alter our collective vision of how computer technology will develop in the coming decades."  (p. 13, section 1.3 Our Path).
     [dh:2003-08-04] I had looked at this book with regard to its implications for computer-mediated communication and collaborative activities.  Also, recent articles by Peter Denning point at this work.  More recently, I was led to the end of the book by another Denning article and it became clear to me that it was time for me to read the book through from beginning to end.  I am doing that.  My notes are here.
   Content
     Preface
     Acknowledgments
     Part I - Theoretical Background
          1. Introduction
          2. The rationalist tradition
          3. Understanding and Being
          4. Cognition as a biological phenomenon
          5. Language, listening, and commitment
          6. Towards a new orientation
     Part II - Computation, Thought, and Language
          7. Computers and representation
          8. Computation and intelligence
          9. Understanding language
          10. Current directions in artificial intelligence
     Part III - Design
          11. Management and conversation
          12. Using computers: directions for design
     Bibliography
     Name Index
     Subject Index
      

[Winograd1997]

Winograd, Terry.  The Design of Interaction.  Chapter 23, pp. 149-161 in Denning, Peter J., Metcalfe, Robert M. (eds.)  Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing.  Copernicus Springer-Verlag (New York: 1997).

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