"You Are Not Expected to Understand This"

How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World

Kelly Chudler, Torie Bosch

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780691208480
• eBook ISBN: 9780691230818
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Data Processing
• Index: Computer Science

Leading technologists, historians, and journalists reveal the stories behind the computer coding that touches all aspects of life—for better or worse

Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word "code" makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. "You Are Not Expected to Understand This" demonstrates that, far from being preordained, computer code is the result of very human decisions, ones we all live with when we use social media, take photos, drive our cars, and engage in a host of other activities.

Everything from law enforcement to space exploration relies on code written by people who, at the time, made choices and assumptions that would have long-lasting, profound implications for society. Torie Bosch brings together many of today's leading technology experts to provide new perspectives on the code that shapes our lives. Contributors discuss a host of topics, such as how university databases were programmed long ago to accept only two genders, what the person who programmed the very first pop-up ad was thinking at the time, the first computer worm, the Bitcoin white paper, and perhaps the most famous seven words in Unix history: "You are not expected to understand this."

This compelling book tells the human stories behind programming, enabling those of us who don't think much about code to recognize its importance, and those who work with it every day to better understand the long-term effects of the decisions they make.

With an introduction by Ellen Ullman and contributions by Mahsa Alimardani, Elena Botella, Meredith Broussard, David Cassel, Arthur Daemmrich, Charles Duan, Quinn DuPont, Claire L. Evans, Hany Farid, James Grimmelmann, Katie Hafner, Susan C. Herring, Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana, Lowen Liu, John MacCormick, Brian McCullough, Charlton McIlwain, Lily Hay Newman, Margaret O'Mara, Will Oremus, Nick Partridge, Benjamin Pope, Joy Lisi Rankin, Afsaneh Rigot, Ellen R. Stofan, Lee Vinsel, Josephine Wolff, and Ethan Zuckerman.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The First Line of Code
• 2. Monte Carlo Algorithms: Random Numbers in Computing from the H-Bomb to Today
• 3. Jean Sammet and the Code That Runs the World
• 4. Spacewar: Collaborative Coding and the Rise of Gaming Culture
• 5. BASIC and the Illusion of Coding Empowerment
• 6. The First Email: The Code That Connected Us Online
• 7. The Police Beat Algorithm: The Code That Launched Computational Policing and Modern Racial Profiling
• 8. “Apollo 11, Do Bailout”
• 9. The Most Famous Comment in Unix History: “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”
• 10. The Accidental Felon
• 11. Internet Relay Chat: From Fish-Slap to LOL
• 12. Hyperlink: The Idea That Led to Another, and Another, and Another
• 13. JPEG: The Unsung Hero in the Digital Revolution
• 14. The Viral Internet Image You’ve Never Seen
• 15. The Pop-Up Ad: The Code That Made the Internet Worse
• 16. Wear This Code, Go to Jail
• 17. Needles in the World’s Biggest Haystack: The Algorithm That Ranked the Internet
• 18. A Failure to Interoperate: The Lost Mars Climate Orbiter
• 19. The Code That Launched a Million Cat Videos
• 20. Nakamoto’s Prophecy: Bitcoin and the Revolution in Trust
• 21. The Curse of the Awesome Button
• 22. The Bug No One Was Responsible For—Until Everyone Was
• 23. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: How Digital Systems Can Be Used to Cheat
• 24. The Code That Brought a Language Online
• 25. Telegram: The Platform That Became “the Internet” in Iran
• 26. Encoding Gender
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• List of Contributors
• Index