CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES
June 2005, Vol. 47, No. 6
Sometime in the 1980's, about the time that the '286 chip was being introduced to the computer world, I was attending a computer class with a number of other librarians from southeastern Connecticut. One week, our homework was to develop a spreadsheet that we could use for a library-related purpose, like budget administration, inventory, calculating payroll for part-time staff, etc. I diligently planned my spreadsheet on scrap paper, drafting and re-drafting columns and rows, checking and double-checking formulas and labels. Then, I typed up my creation, entered my values, and let the program crank out the final numbers. The spreadsheet looked great...until I checked the math. One cell was incorrect. I went over the formulas. I reviewed my class notes and handouts. Even after several nights of searching, I could not find where I had gone wrong. Nor could my instructor. He contacted the software company. The problem was a known, but rarely seen software bug. The combination of values and formulas that I entered would inevitably result in nonsense. All would be correct in the next release! I still resent it when a computer program betrays my trust. What kind of people write programs that don't work?
Ellen Ullman, herself a computer programmer for over two decades, brings us a novel that peeks inside the process of writing software and provides insight into the people who write it. Throughout her book, Ullman reminds us that the world of computers is not the same world in which we humans live. The computer world, comprised as it is of hardware, operating systems, and application software, is a creation of man. It is bound by rules that may just as easily ignore our human needs as address them. Often, the computer world's powerful rules are not the product of careful planning or rational thought. Many rules result from carelessness, arrogance, misunderstanding, time pressure, and technological limitations.
The dot.com bubble is about to burst when we meet Berta Walton, a successful woman who has risen through the ranks of the software industry. An unremarkable exchange with an immigration official at an airport pushes Berta's thoughts back to 1984 and to her first computer industry job. It is a time when the now familiar mouse and graphic user interface are just beginning to be employed. A fugitive from the academic world of literature, Berta's IT career began with the position of software tester for a start-up called Telligensia. Berta's function was to run pre-release versions of company software and report problems to the programmers who were responsible for the "bugs" in the code. Like all testers, her status was low. Programmers resent having their work picked apart by menials who could not perform the simplest of programming functions.
Resolving bugs is tedious and keeps them behind schedule, but programmers recognize that debugging is part of the job. Most bugs are minor issues that programmers track down one step at a time-except for a bug labeled UI-1017. Berta finds the bug, the 1,017th problem discovered in the user interface, and reports it to the responsible programmer, Ethan Levin. As usual, he ignores her and continues working until he can find time to tackle the bug. The first sign of serious trouble is Ethan's inability to replicate the problem encountered by Berta. He arrogantly chastises the messenger and closes the bug file. However, UI-1017 will not be denied. It returns sporadically, unpredictably, like a ghost, like the "Jester" in a deck of cards, and as Ethan Levin's nemesis. UI-1017 places all of Telligentsia at risk, as impatient venture capitalists insist on a fast return on investment.
Ethan Levin is an oddball even in a workplace filled with more than the usual set of personality peculiarities. While Levin does not fit in at work, his home life is no more comfortable. His long-time girlfriend Joanna resents his coolness. She struggles desperately to get his attention, but he is distracted by the computer world in which he makes the rules. Levin even studies "life" through a computer simulation, a program called "The Game of Life" created by a mathematician named John Horton Conway. In Conway's two-dimensional universe of x's and o's, Levin seeks to understand life, even as he ignores the living around him.
While UI-1017 appears to be Ethan Levin's undoing, it paradoxically proves to be the making of Berta Walton. As experienced programmer Levin struggles mightily, then hopelessly, against "The Bug," Walton commits herself to learning the intricacies of writing and debugging software. As Levin's computer and real worlds teeter, Walton takes control of her world by applying previously unknown talents to her work. "The Bug," it might be said, after destroying the careers of one Telligentsia employee after another, finally succumbs to the inevitable march of technological progress. Like my frustrating spreadsheet problem, it is gone from the next release.
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