Flutterby™! : Rick Cook

A few weeks ago I downloaded the two books by Rick Cook available from the Baen Free Library. Not high literature, but good "my brain is too toasted to do anything else" escapist reading, and I think the free availability had its intended effect: I'll probably be buying the rest in cheap paper for boring plane flights.

The general theme is: Silicon valley hacker gets transported into magical realm, discovers that magic can be manipulated in programming terms, with assorted geek in-jokes. But what struck me most was how much attitudes about software have evolved in the decade and a half since these were written. One of the lead quotes he uses is:

The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea.

Recent experiences make the first speak to me, but I remember that point at which I switched from looking down on the users, even in jest, to trying to accomodate them. And I'm not sure that in the race between applications programmers to build more idiot-proof software and the universe building more and bigger idots that we're in any way winning, I just found it interesting to be exposed to that historical precedent.