Books reviews, current events, and other musings

Ellen Ullman’s The Bug is the first book I’ve read that takes place at a software company. It’s kind of neat for a novel to portray the world where I spend my working hours. As one distancing factor, the narrative mainly takes place in 1984, and the protagonists are developing a product that was revolutionary then but is commonplace today: a mouse-driven GUI client integrated with a database server.

Roberta, a humanities Ph.D. turned software tester, discovers an erratic bug that crashes the system. Ethan, the programmer responsible for fixing the bug, cannot make headway on the subtle problem, which cannot be reproduced but keeps turning up at the worst possible times. As the bug persists, it plays an increasingly significant role in Roberta’s and Ethan’s lives.

Ullman captures the tempo and day-by-day life of software development fairly well, though things are a bit more dramatic than in real life. Programmers struggle to achieve deadlines, personality conflicts occur between coworkers, and VC’s make unreasonable demands. Ullman explains various programming basics, such as the C language and a debugger, but it’s not too monotonous for someone who already knows that stuff.

Roberta and Ethan both have less-than-ideal personal lives, adding to tension that they’re experiencing at work. Still, the struggle against the elusive bug frames the entire book, in a clever variant of the man vs. machine narrative form. Though the ending is rather depressing, The Bug is well worth reading.
 
posted by Julian at 11:10PM

The American Prospect has an excellent analysis of Howard Dean that rings true with my observations.

But there is one way in which Clinton did not rebuild the Democratic Party: from the ground up. Beyond rhetoric, and the occasional action, he didn't really make it a party of the people. He and Al Gore did energize a youth vote in 1992, and he made millions of voters who'd been disaffected feel comfortable voting Democratic again, bringing important states like New Jersey back into the Democratic camp.

But he never situated the party as an entity that represented the aspirations of its people—its most committed members.
...
This is where Howard Dean comes in. If one thinks of the Democratic Party as rebuilding itself after its disastrous 1980s, then Dean—or more appropriately, "Deanism"—is a new and potentially more powerful stage of the rebuilding process. Clinton rebuilt (forgive the Marxist terminology, but it happens to fit) the superstructure. Dean is rebuilding the base. "If Clinton modernized the message," says Simon Rosenberg, the most prominent centrist Democrat who's enthusiastic about Dean, "then Dean is rebuilding the party. In the '90s party, it was, 'Write us a big check.' Regular people were left out of that equation. Now, through new technology, we're getting them back in."

Nobody I knew was ever enthusiastic about Bill Clinton, except to the extent that he won elections and survived the garbage Republicans threw at him. In contrast, lots of people are excited about Howard Dean, even people who don't agree with all of Dean's policy views. The Prospect essay explains my instinctive support of Dean, in language that I couldn't really articulate.

Grass-roots activism on the right has helped the Republicans over the last two decades. Maybe Dean's candidacy, and Presidency, can inspire a stronger, more engaged Democratic base.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein's capture is the exciting news of the day, but it's not that important in the overall scheme of things.

I'm much more concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people and of the soldiers stationed in Iraq. Having Saddam in custody won't change the Iraqi situation that much. The groups fighting the US occupation will continue doing so, since the power issues and other concerns are the same as before.

I hope that Saddam receives a trial; it would be a good precedent for an Iraqi criminal justice system. Despite my opposition to capital punishment, it wouldn't bother me at all if Saddam was put to death.

Anyway, capturing Saddam will be a boost to Bush's popularity. Too bad; George Bush's whereabouts in 2005 are much bigger deal than Saddam Hussein's.

posted by Julian at 3:55PM