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Search in Book Reviews

The ACCU passes on review copies of computer books to its members for them to review. The result is a large, high quality collection of book reviews by programmers, for programmers. Currently there are 1949 reviews in the database and more every month.
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Title:
The Limits of Software
Author:
Robert Britcher
ISBN:
0 201 43323 0
Publisher:
Addison-Wesley
Pages:
213pp
Price:
£18.99
Reviewer:
Francis Glassborow
Subject:
technology
Appeared in:
12-3
This book is far from what I expected. It is a collection of seventeen essays by the author that are autobiographical in part and anecdotal elsewhere. Each item is chosen because it encapsulates something worthy of thought but the author does not attempt to tell you what to conclude. In some cases the conclusions are obvious but in others they are likely to be very individual. There is a sense in which these essays are an exercise in extended Haiku because the author is sharing factual experiences with the reader while leaving the reader to interpret them and add emotional content.

Robert Glass wrote the forward and his first sentence is:

"I can't believe how hard it has been for me to write a forward to this book." Later he writes:

"This book is not like anything else you've ever read on the subject of computing. It's part storytelling, part history, part art, part science, part philosophy, part logic - all entwined around the subject of computing and software. To be honest, I don't know whether or not you'll like this book" Well this reviewer did, but I have no idea as to whether you will. If nothing else read the whole of Robert Glass' foreword.

Worth sharing though a little expensive ...