"You Are Not Expected to Understand This": How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World

217 Pages·2022·11.604 MB·English

by  Torie Bosch (editor)

Advance Praise for
“ You Are Not Expected
to Understand This”
“ In truth, ‘You Are Not Expected to Understand This’ is startlingly
understandable! These vivid, lucid, brilliant essays tell the ori-
gin stories of coding, the secret infrastructure that shapes our
online life. We meet the people who wrote and rewrote the lines
of code that changed the world. We glimpse their ambitions, mis-
takes, remorse, fixes, and ingenuity. We understand why (and
how) women were the ones who designed early programming
languages like COBOL; how pop-up ads came to exist; how the
‘like’ button blew up news and politics as we knew them. Read
this book, and you will never look at your newsfeed the same
way again.”
— Liza Mundy, author of Code Girls: The Untold Story of
the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
“C ode powers much of modern life, yet most of us spend little
time thinking about it. This book will change that. Wide-ranging,
provocative, and bursting with humanity, ‘You Are Not Expected to
Understand This’ is essential reading on the history and culture
of code.”
— Sara Wachter-Boettcher, author of Technically Wrong:
Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
“C ode governs our lives—and this book does a delightful job of
giving us a glimpse into some of the biggest wins, and most co-
lossal blunders, in software.”
— Clive Thompson, author of Coders: The Making
of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World

“ You Are Not Expected
to Understand This”

“ You Are Not
Expected to
Understand This”
How 26 Lines
of Code Changed
the World
Edited by Torie Bosch
With an introduction by Ellen Ullman
and illustrations by Kelly Chudler
Princeton University Press / Princeton & Oxford
Compilation and preface copyright © 2022 by Slate Magazine.
Essays and illustrations copyright © 2022 by Princeton University Press.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bosch, Torie, editor. | Chudler, Kelly S., illustrator. | Ullman, Ellen,
writer of introduction.
Title: You are not expected to understand this : how 26 lines of code changed
the world / edited by Torie Bosch ; with an introduction by Ellen Ullman
and illustrations by Kelly Chudler.
Description: First edition. | Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022013091 (print) | LCCN 2022013092 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691208480 (pbk. ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780691230818 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Computer programming—Popular works. | Computer science—
Social aspects—Popular works. | BISAC: COMPUTERS / Programming / General |
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Technology Studies
Classification: LCC QA76.6 .Y585 2022 (print) | LCC QA76.6 (ebook) |
DDC 005.13—dc23/eng/20220527
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013091
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013092
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Hallie Stebbins, Kristen Hop, and Kiran Pandey
Production Editorial: Natalie Baan
Text and Cover Design: Chris Ferrante
Production: Danielle Amatucci and Lauren Reese
Publicity: Kate Farquhar- Thomson and Sara Henning- Stout
Copyeditor: Michele Rosen
Page 132: Comic adapted from MonkeyUser, reproduced with permission.
This book has been composed in IBM Plex
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface ix
Torie Bosch
Introduction 1
Ellen Ullman
1 The First Line of Code 13
Elena Botella
2 Monte Carlo Algorithms: Random Numbers in
Computing from the H-B omb to Today 19
Benjamin Pope
3 Jean Sammet and the Code That Runs the World 25
Claire L. Evans
4 Spacewar: Collaborative Coding and the Rise of
Gaming Culture 31
Arthur Daemmrich
5 BASIC and the Illusion of Coding Empowerment 38
Joy Lisi Rankin
6 The First Email: The Code That Connected Us Online 44
Margaret O’Mara
7 The Police Beat Algorithm: The Code That Launched
Computational Policing and Modern Racial Profiling 49
Charlton McIlwain
8 “Apollo 11, Do Bailout” 56
Ellen R. Stofan and Nick Partridge
vi / COntEnts
9 The Most Famous Comment in Unix History:
“You Are Not Expected to Understand This” 63
David Cassel
10 The Accidental Felon 69
Katie Hafner
11 Internet Relay Chat: From Fish- Slap to LOL 75
Susan C. Herring
12 Hyperlink: The Idea That Led to Another,
and Another, and Another 81
Brian McCullough
13 JPEG: The Unsung Hero in the
Digital Revolution 86
Hany Farid
14 The Viral Internet Image You’ve Never Seen 91
Lily Hay Newman
15 The Pop- Up Ad: The Code That Made the
Internet Worse 96
Ethan Zuckerman
16 Wear This Code, Go to Jail 102
James Grimmelmann
17 Needles in the World’s Biggest Haystack:
The Algorithm That Ranked the Internet 108
John MacCormick
18 A Failure to Interoperate: The Lost Mars
Climate Orbiter 113
Charles Duan
COntEnts / vii
19 The Code That Launched a Million Cat Videos 119
Lowen Liu
20 Nakamoto’s Prophecy: Bitcoin and the
Revolution in Trust 124
Quinn DuPont
21 The Curse of the Awesome Button 131
Will Oremus
22 The Bug No One Was Responsible For—
Until Everyone Was 139
Josephine Wolff
23 The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal:
How Digital Systems Can Be Used to Cheat 145
Lee Vinsel
24 The Code That Brought a Language Online 151
Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana
25 Telegram: The Platform That Became
“the Internet” in Iran 156
Mahsa Alimardani and Afsaneh Rigot
26 Encoding Gender 162
Meredith Broussard
Acknowledgments 169
Notes 171
List of Contributors 189
Index 195