Ellen Ullman is an American computer programmer and author. She has written books, articles, and essays that analyze the human side of the world of computer programming.
Ellen Ullman | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | programmer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genres | non-fiction, fiction |
She has owned a consulting firm and worked as technology commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. Her breakthrough book was non-fiction: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents.
Life
editUllman's adoptive father's family included computer scientists and mathematicians who had a major impact on her decision to pursue software engineering, a field for which she did "not have native talent."[1] Ullman earned a B.A. in English at Cornell University in the early 1970s.[2] She began working professionally in 1978 as a programmer of electronic data interchange applications and graphical user interfaces.[3]
She eventually began writing about her experiences as a programmer. From 1994 until 1996, she published articles in Harper's Magazine and in the collections Resisting the Virtual Life and Wired Women.[3] She lives in San Francisco.[4]
Bibliography
editBooks
edit- Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents San Francisco : City Lights Books, 1997. ISBN 9780872863323
- Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. ISBN 9780374534516
Novels
edit- The Bug New York, N.Y. : Talese, 2003. ISBN 0-385-50860-3
- By Blood: A Novel New York, N.Y. : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. ISBN 9780374117559
Selected articles and essays
edit- Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life (included in the 1995 collection Resisting the Virtual Life, ISBN 0-87286-299-2)
- The Myth of Order. The real lesson of Y2K is that software operates just like any natural system: out of control [5]
- The dumbing-down of programming [6][7]
- How to Be a 'Woman Programmer' [8]
- Twilight of the crypto-geeks: Lone-wolf digital libertarians are beginning to abandon their faith in technology uber alles and espouse suspiciously socialist-sounding ideas. [9]
- Geeks Win: A survey of the oddballs who write the codes that make the 21st-century world go round [10]
- The Orphans of Invention [11]
- The Boss in the Machine [12]
- Identity Stolen? Take a Number [13]
- Dennis Ritchie [14]
References
edit- ^ Ellen Ullman (1 January 2009). "My Secret Life". The New York Times. San Francisco. p. A23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ "Women Who Inspire Us". GirlGeeks. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
- ^ a b "Interview with Ellen Ullman: Of Machines, Methods, and Madness". IEEE Software. 15 (3). Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society: 42–45. May 1998. doi:10.1109/ms.1998.676733. ISSN 0740-7459. S2CID 916133.
- ^ Scott Rosenberg (2003-05-16). "Bugged out". Salon Magazine. Retrieved 2017-10-05. (Interview about her novel The Bug.)
- ^ "The Myth of Order. The real lesson of Y2K is that software operates just like any natural system: out of control". Wired. April 1999.
- ^ "The dumbing-down of programming: Rebelling against Microsoft and its wizards, an engineer rediscovers the joys of difficult computing. First of two parts". Salon.com. 12 May 1998.
- ^ "The dumbing-down of programming: Part Two: Returning to the source. Once knowledge disappears into code, how do we retrieve it?". Salon.com. 13 May 1998.
- ^ "How to Be a 'Woman Programmer'". The New York Times. 18 May 2013.
- ^ "Twilight of the crypto-geeks: Lone-wolf digital libertarians are beginning to abandon their faith in technology uber alles and espouse suspiciously socialist-sounding ideas". Salon.com. 13 May 2000.
- ^ "Geeks Win: A survey of the oddballs who write the codes that make the 21st-century world go round". The New York Times Book Review. 4 November 2001. p. BR18. ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^ "The Orphans of Invention". The New York Times. San Francisco. 22 May 2003. p. A33. ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^ "The Boss in the Machine". The New York Times. San Francisco. 19 February 2005. p. A15. ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^ "Identity Stolen? Take a Number". The New York Times. San Francisco. 17 July 2006. p. A17. ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^ "Dennis Ritchie, b. 1941". The New York Times Magazine. 25 December 2011: 24.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
External links
edit
- Interview with Salon magazine (October 9, 1997)
- Interview with Stay Free magazine (Fall 1998)
- Interview with frontwheeldrive.com (May 21, 1999)
- Interview with SF Gate (May 8, 2002)
- Interview and discussion of The Bug on The WELL (January, 2004)
- Audio interview with Jon Udell (October 6, 2006)