In the Beginning...Was the Command Line

November 1, 1999
After reading this galvanizing essay, first intended as a feature for Wired magazine but never published there, readers are unlikely to look at their laptops in quite the same mutely complacent way. Stephenson, author of the novel Cryptonomicon, delivers a spirited commentary on the aesthetics and cultural import of computer operating systems. It's less an archeology of early machines than a critique of what Stephenson feels is the inherent fuzziness of graphical user interfaces--the readily intuitable "windows," "desktops" and "browsers" that we use to talk to our computers. Like Disney's distortion of complicated historical events, our operating systems, he argues, lull us into a reductive sense of reality. Instead of the visual metaphors handed to us by Apple and Microsoft, Stephenson advocates the purity of the command line interface, somewhat akin to the DOS prompt from which most people flee in a technophobic panic. Stephenson is an advocate of Linux, the hacker-friendly operating system distributed for free on the Internet, and of BeOS, a less-hyped paradigm for the bits-and-bytes future. Unlike a string of source code, this essay is user-friendly--occasionally to a fault. Stephenson's own set of extended metaphors can get a little hokey: Windows is a station wagon, while Macs are sleek Euro-sedans. And Unix is the Gilgamesh epic of the hacker subculture. Nonetheless, by pointing out how computers define who we are, Stephenson makes a strong case for elegance and intellectual freedom in computing.

November 15, 1999
Available for free download online at an Avon-sponsored website, this extended essay on computer operating systems by high-tech novelist Stephenson (Cryptonomicon) generated such demand that the server actually crashed. The audience for this title, though, is potentially much broader. Stephenson's strength lies in making technical topics accessible; anyone who has used a mouse, typed a letter into a word processor, or developed an interest in the history of computers will be able to enjoy much of this book. He is weakest, however, in reining in his prose--the ease of composing on a computer seems in his case to encourage logorrhea. The long-anticipated outcome of the government's case against Microsoft may increase interest in Stephenson's viewpoint that the inevitable tendency of computer operating systems is toward becoming both free and open. Buy where interest in technology issues is strong, although readers who pick up the book because of Stephenson's name may wish that a firmer hand had edited the material.--Rachel Singer, Franklin Park P.L., IL

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.