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Two Forgettable Books

Not too many best sellers talk about technical subjects. It's fun to read those that are accurate, interesting and readable, if for no other reason than to see how outsiders perceive our world.

Clifford Stohl, famous for his wonderful first book about catching spies posing as hackers, recently released Silicon Snake Oil (1995 Doubleday, NY, NY ISBN 0-385-41993-7). It's his take on the information revolution, and it sounds the same tired old alarms we've heard about computers for many years.

He worries that too many people will be sucked into cyberspace, so losing their interpersonal skills. Communicating via Usenet and email is not real communication, he contends, because there's no face-to-face interaction.

Hogwash. Your editor here at Softaid feels (enter soapbox mode) that the Internet will be the revenge of the liberal arts majors. The technology is nothing more than the medium; the communication takes place between people, presumably people with something to say. Those who can express themselves well, via email, Usenet and Web sites, will be the superstars of electronic communication.

Though a lot of the net is nothing more than noise, that's the nature of any communication. How many water-cooler conversations should be saved for posterity?

(Exit soapbox mode)

Stohl suggests that for every hour spent on-line, people should be *required* (gasp!) to read a novel for an equal period. Ditto for email: balance that with a (required) hour of chit chat.

The book is endlessly repetitive, full of banalities, and brings nothing new to the table. Spend the $25 on a month of connect time instead and meet some new friends.

Fatal Defect, by Ivars Peterson (1995 Random House, NY, NY ISBN 0-8129-2023-6), is the story about our lousy software and how it will bring the world to an end. Or something. Peterson is correct: software is buggy, and will probably remain buggy forever.

In some cases this will be life-threatening. We can say the same about any technology advance. Think of the early airplane pioneers, or Grissom/White/Chaffee on Apollo 1. The world is a dangerous place; software, particularly embedded software probably makes it safer, though of course involves new and different risks. We need to learn to manage these, not whine about them.

The book could have been a winner if it contained many examples with lessons we can draw from each. No luck. The one useful suggestion is to monitor the computer risks forums, on Usenet at comp.risks.

The best part is one of the "solutions" Peterson describes - a new methodology promoted by a computer science professor. It's a complete success... in the one project described. Oh yeah, the project did take 8 years to complete, instead of the three they budgeted it at. Must be nice to have such a flexible schedule; surely in industry this is not an option.