Welcome to the twenty-seventh issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, dedicated to the subject of Networking. In this edition, Graham explores one of the most mysterious slogans of all time in the computer industry; Adrian recalls his first steps on the Internet with a capital letter; and in the Library section, Graham peruses two of the most important works of Steve McConnell, namely "Code Complete, 2nd Edition" and "More Effective Agile".
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The Network Is The Computer
Back in the mists of time, an early Sun Microsystems employee by the name of John Gage coined the term "the network is the computer" to describe the centrality Sun put on network capabilities when designing their workstations.
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Sniffing Packets
I remember vividly the first time I saw somebody "online." It was early in a morning of December 1994, in the hallways of the "Sciences 2" building of the University of Geneva. One of my classmates, who worked part-time as a professional software developer, was connected to a terminal with glowing yellow text over a dark brown background. To my question about what he was doing, he answered with a simple "I am downloading stuff from Apple's server in California."
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Steve McConnell
I almost wrote this article not about McConnell, but Microsoft Press. Why? Because developers always have something to learn, books have been a great way to share information for centuries, so reading about computing is central to the software engineering experience. If you do not believe me, reflect on the activity you are undertaking right now, reading an online magazine about computing.
