The Devil in the Stack
Andrew Smith . August 2024 . Beaverton Lib. 005.1 SMI
My first glance at this book was off-putting - I somehow got the idea that the author thought perjoratively about programmers and technologists. The book is actually a journalist making a deep and sincere dive into software, the communities of people who create and maintain it, and how they think about it.
pXI Prologue, 2013 and Bitcoin , pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto
- pXIII Bitcoin uses C++
pXIV Bitcoin exegesis: Satoshi not C++ native, learned to code in 1980s, mixed US/British spellings
pXV Russian(s)? Vladislav Surkov? Putin’s Rasputinreflexive control
pXXVIII TV shows Silicon ValleyMr. RobotRussian Doll 10Xer 5% women 3% black
pXXVIII Facebook Myanmar genocideIndiaSri Lanka
- p001 1700 to 9000 programming languages
p002 freeCodeCamp 2014 Quincy Larson
p002 trio of web languages: HTML CSS JavaScript
- p003 shift-devil: dash that should have been underscore
p005 Pascal case Camel case
p005 lorem ipsum
- p007 programming is never easy ... accept that feeling -- of being constantly wrong and not knowing
- p008 ... exposes me as probably no smarter than an economist.
p016 Bloomberg essay What is code?
p018 Nicholas Tollervey Don't let anyone tell you code is not political
p018 Zen of Python
- p019 There should be one - and preferably only one - obvious way to do it. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
p021 Young travelmate Alex, maintains websites using the Django web framework (like MoinMoin, coded in Python)
p022 Author's new home in Marin, where crimes are harshing a mellow without a license, and gluten smuggling
p022 ecstatic dance group ... sensei
p25 Naomi Ceder
p27 Recurse center in Brooklyn, phrase "well actually" banned
p27 San Quentin The Last Mile
p28 Bikeshedding
p30 PyLadies
p36 Lynn Root painting charity-auctioned for $16, $32, $64 ... $512 ... $1410!
p59 Great Hunger 1845-1852
- homeless in the streets while academics and church elders dined luxuriously
- p67 Post-Brexit Überschwemmung (flooding, presumably of coders from England to the continent)
p68 Anti-immigration riots in Chemnitz 2018
p68 2018 Google data breach private data of 500,000 uw34w
p70 Dr. Janet Siegmund learning coder brain scans
p70 programming education high drop out rate (50% is "astronomical?" Higher for Medicine, Engineering, Architecture, Law, and Accounting)
p72 André Brechmann Combinatorial NeuroImaging, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg
p73 Java -> Python Norman Peitek
- p75 axon transmission rate 50% ??
- p78 computer code comprehension activates brain areas for working memory, problem-solving, and language processing, left hemisphere for most right-handers
- same areas for natural language and general analytical processing
- no left hemisphere for mathematical thinking
- p78 Dijkstra "An exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset for a competent programmer."
- p79 "...some computer science students are hardly able to talk, to form whole sentences when they come to us/"
- p79