Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman is an American computer programmer and author. She has written books, articles, and essays that analyze the human side of the world of computer programming.

Ellen Ullman
Occupation	programmer
Nationality	American
Genres	non-fiction, fiction

She has owned a consulting firm and worked as technology commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. Her breakthrough book was non-fiction: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents.

Life

Ullman's adoptive father's family included computer scientists and mathematicians who had a major impact on her decision to pursue software engineering, a field for which she did "not have native talent."^[1] Ullman earned a B.A. in English at Cornell University in the early 1970s.^[2] She began working professionally in 1978 as a programmer of electronic data interchange applications and graphical user interfaces.^[3]

She eventually began writing about her experiences as a programmer. From 1994 until 1996, she published articles in Harper's Magazine and in the collections Resisting the Virtual Life and Wired Women.^[3] She lives in San Francisco.^[4]

Bibliography

Books

• Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents San Francisco : City Lights Books, 1997. ISBN 9780872863323
• Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. ISBN 9780374534516

Novels

• The Bug New York, N.Y. : Talese, 2003. ISBN 0-385-50860-3
• By Blood: A Novel New York, N.Y. : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. ISBN 9780374117559

Selected articles and essays

• Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life (included in the 1995 collection Resisting the Virtual Life, ISBN 0-87286-299-2)
• The Myth of Order. The real lesson of Y2K is that software operates just like any natural system: out of control ^[5]
• The dumbing-down of programming ^[6][7]
• How to Be a 'Woman Programmer' ^[8]
• Twilight of the crypto-geeks: Lone-wolf digital libertarians are beginning to abandon their faith in technology uber alles and espouse suspiciously socialist-sounding ideas. ^[9]
• Geeks Win: A survey of the oddballs who write the codes that make the 21st-century world go round ^[10]
• The Orphans of Invention ^[11]
• The Boss in the Machine ^[12]
• Identity Stolen? Take a Number ^[13]
• Dennis Ritchie ^[14]

References

1. Ellen Ullman (1 January 2009). "My Secret Life". The New York Times. San Francisco. p. A23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
2. "Women Who Inspire Us". GirlGeeks. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
3. "Interview with Ellen Ullman: Of Machines, Methods, and Madness". IEEE Software. 15 (3). Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society: 42–45. May 1998. doi:10.1109/ms.1998.676733. ISSN 0740-7459. S2CID 916133.
4. Scott Rosenberg (2003-05-16). "Bugged out". Salon Magazine. Retrieved 2017-10-05. (Interview about her novel The Bug.)
5. "The Myth of Order. The real lesson of Y2K is that software operates just like any natural system: out of control". Wired. April 1999.
6. "The dumbing-down of programming: Rebelling against Microsoft and its wizards, an engineer rediscovers the joys of difficult computing. First of two parts". Salon.com. 12 May 1998.
7. "The dumbing-down of programming: Part Two: Returning to the source. Once knowledge disappears into code, how do we retrieve it?". Salon.com. 13 May 1998.
8. "How to Be a 'Woman Programmer'". The New York Times. 18 May 2013.
9. "Twilight of the crypto-geeks: Lone-wolf digital libertarians are beginning to abandon their faith in technology uber alles and espouse suspiciously socialist-sounding ideas". Salon.com. 13 May 2000.
10. "Geeks Win: A survey of the oddballs who write the codes that make the 21st-century world go round". The New York Times Book Review. 4 November 2001. p. BR18. ISSN 0362-4331.
11. "The Orphans of Invention". The New York Times. San Francisco. 22 May 2003. p. A33. ISSN 0362-4331.
12. "The Boss in the Machine". The New York Times. San Francisco. 19 February 2005. p. A15. ISSN 0362-4331.
13. "Identity Stolen? Take a Number". The New York Times. San Francisco. 17 July 2006. p. A17. ISSN 0362-4331.
14. "Dennis Ritchie, b. 1941". The New York Times Magazine. 25 December 2011: 24. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

External links

• Interview with Salon magazine (October 9, 1997)
• Interview with Stay Free magazine (Fall 1998)
• Interview with frontwheeldrive.com (May 21, 1999)
• Interview with SF Gate (May 8, 2002)
• Interview and discussion of The Bug on The WELL (January, 2004)
• Audio interview with Jon Udell (October 6, 2006)