The Programmer: A Novel

by Bruce Jackson

The Programmer by Bruce Jackson - First Ballantine Books First Edition December 1981

Genres: Mystery

281 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Bruce Jackson is an American folklorist, documentary filmmaker, writer, photographer. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor and the James Agee Professor of American Culture at the University at Buffalo. Jackson has edited or authored books published by major university presses. He has also directed and produced five documentary films.

Reviews

[Matthew Bieniek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a fun read. The first half does a pretty good job introducing the lead character, who is described on the back cover as "an average programmer from upstate New York." He has a lousy job, working for an incompetent boss. He's stuck in a loveless marriage to his TV-addicted wife. He feels oppressed by the financial institutions he's forced to deal with and his finances are in shambles. So he decides to do something about it, using his computer skills.

Another reviewer wrote that "the author doesn't know much about computers." I preferred to read this as a science-fiction story, with an emphasis on "fiction", at least where the technology was concerned. A lot of that didn't make much sense, but I kind of glossed it as the story carried me along. The book was published in 1979, well before everyone in the world knew of hackers and viruses and cyber-crime, and well before everyone had a personal computer or three in their homes.

The book is no literary classic, but I found it very entertaining.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A worthwhile read for a certain kind of vintage computing nerd. Written in 1979, it's about a hacker, though the term wasn't coined yet, who messes with government and credit card company files in order to help out the Middle Class Man. He accesses remote computers' memory banks (i.e., reels of magnetic tape!) via telephone lines (phone phreaking!!). The author doesn't know much about computers; according to his portrayal, computers seem to have a mind of their own, language-based rather than mathematical. Hilarious to read; horribly written (much use of "neat," much telling rather than showing). Worth a skim, at least.