Preface

This book has no overarching thesis, and that is a decision rather than an omission: it is a collection of one programmer’s thoughts about software, organized and sharing a vocabulary, and a proposed spine running from encoded knowledge to loss at every hop was considered and declined. Part I lays a foundation – machine and program, information, knowledge, software, the operating system – and Part II is about the craft that sits on it. The foundation is living rather than finished, and is meant to be revised when later material strains it.