A jolly romp through the annals of computing
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If, like me, you've managed to live your life quite happily until now without ever having heard the name of Verity Stob, you will be delighted to discover she is an intelligent (sic) writer of hilarious computer satire, who has been penning witty quips for computer magazines since 1988.
This book is a large collection of her articles from the archives, as well as a few that were not published the first time around. It has to be said that a lot of the humour in this book is for computer programmers, however, if you know nothing at all about programming but know an exceptional amount about dongles, gender-benders and two-way 25-pin D-type parallel connections, there is one article you may laugh at.
Stob's humour is very British at times, but she helpfully provides a jocular Glossary of Britisms at the back of the book to help you along if you're of colonial descent.
Occasionally Stob can witter on into the depths of obscurity, leaving you far behind thinking "am I stupid, or is Stob pretending to be clever?", but her pretence is so utterly believable I am left feeling somewhat inadequate. In particular her re-writing of classic poetry to the tune of technical jargon, and her numerous visits to the Book of Yoc-am written out in biblical-style verses and chapters recounting the adventures of the sons of Kahn (formerly known as the Borland-ites), can get a little tedious.
However, there are so many gems in this book, that anyone lucky enough to have lived through the development of PC software and technology between 1988 and 2004* will find this a laugh-out-loud and thoroughly entertaining read, which will trigger frequent mirthquakes. She's such a clever writer that even the article titles on the Contents page ooze wit.
I love this book, it now has pride of place in my toilet.
(* If you didn't get to live through it, I extend my belated condolences to you).
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A must for any programmer
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Even though some of the articles are 'before my time' (I'm 26), I recommend this to any geek. This book has everything from describing emotionally attached assembly programmers who are so sensitive to their code they pass out when their machines are rebooted, to poking at fun to modern day programming paradigms.
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Laugh out loud.
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I'm the mad person you see on the Central line, laughing at some computer book on the way to work. Easily the funniest book on computers in print. This is humour for people who do computers, not the poor little drabs who merely use them.
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The wit and whizzwigdom of the ace acerbic programmer
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When I announced, on cix, that my "Verity Stob (does not) have a big bottom" t-shirt had finally fallen to bits (that's 8 bits not your new fangled 32 or 64 bits mind) Ms Stob wrote to me saying I should console myself with her new book. So I did, and I'm jolly glad I did too. Such joy at reading some old favourites from her jottings in .EXE mag. The subtle wit distilled from the understanding of the experienced practitioner and her coding pencil. The art of refined and clever programming by a master of her craft, clever, syntactically correct with all the correct verbs. A far cry from today's regression of languages to point and grunt. This book is a must, to be chuckled at over and over and sit amongst the hallowed tomes of K&R, "Obfuscated C", Knuth and tattered cuttings of "Sam and the Fat man" from Freelance Informer (another defunct mag from the heady days when the streets of London were paved with drunk contract programmers).
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Wonderful
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I'm astounded there aren't a whole load of positive reviews for this fine book. Funny, nostalgic, and hopefully Verity's column will reappear regularly in some suitable organ.
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