The Week

In the past week, the world lost Bill Atkinson, a generous, caring individual who also happened to have influenced all our lives through his work. He was the visionary behind the look of the Macintosh user interface. I use the word “visionary” deliberately to point out that Bill’s contribution always had a strong visual component. It was there in his Quickdraw, the software that made it possible for the Mac to display efficiently all the graphical elements — windows, icons, menus, pointer —  that made up the graphical user interface that promptly became the standard way to interact with a computer. But Bill also invented HyperCard, a product that let non-programmers build applications by dragging and dropping visual elements and adding minimal scripting. Inherently visual. And he wrote MacPaint, a powerful drawing program and one of the bundled apps that made the original Mac worth the price. Later, he entered on a second career as a photographer, combining his visual sense and his programming skills to produce remarkable images. We are fortunate that he so generously shared his vision.

Image of the Week

The Mac team. Bill Atkinson is the one holding a Mac. And wearing it, too. Apple photo.

Apple Developer Week

Apple’s annual developer conference is taking place this week. The consensus is that nothing of importance will be shared on the AI front, and in fact the only announcements will be about enhancements to Apple’s operating systems. Nobody seems to think Apple is about to announce an AI-enhanced Siri assistant. I typically watch the keynote and check in with Apple developers and then offer some opinions later, so I’ll probably report on this next weeek.

Quote of the Week

I have realized over time that I missed the mark with HyperCard. I grew up in a box-centric culture at Apple. If I’d grown up in a network-centric culture, like Sun, HyperCard might have been the first Web browser. My blind spot at Apple prevented me from making HyperCard the first Web browser.
-Bill Atkinson

I get that, but it was still a seriously empowering and delightful invention. It allowed so many people who would never be programmers to develop software for their own use. It inspired me to write a book, a monthly column in MacUsermagazine, and a magazine, all devoted to HyperCard. HyperCard was an important part of my life for many years. Thank you, Bill.

Word of the Week: Bavovna

…Russian media reported the explosion as a khlopok, a “pop.” However, when the announcement was translated into the Ukrainian language, the machine translation program confused the identically written words for “pop” and “cotton,” and translated khlopok into Ukrainian as bavovna (Ukrainian: бавовна), a word which unambiguously means “cotton.” Later, Ukrainian Twitter users would begin to mockingly refer to future explosions as “bavovna”, mocking both the censorship of Russian media as well as the perceived lack of knowledge of the Ukrainian language among Russians….
-Wikipedia

Link(s) of the Week

Marcus Blankenship has been writing about human-centered leadership for over a decade, and he writes from the heart — and from experience. If you have had enough of being bullied, micromanaged, and talked down to; if you find yourself bumped up to a management role without preparation; if you think you could benefit from daily nuggets of new ways of thinking and acting that invite you to bring your whole, amazing self to work — than check out Programming Leadership.

I edit books for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. This one just came out: Rails Scales! Rails doesn’t scale, say the naysayers. But they’re wrong. Cristian Planas introduces techniques, patterns, and tricks to make your Rails application scale to billions of requests per day. If you do Rails development, this book will pay for itself. (Disclosure: As the book’s editor, I get royalties on sales.)

Speaking of editing, here’s a brief note on how I begin the task. (I hope to offer these thoughts on working with words every week.)

How I Edit

Thoughts on Working with Words

Before I begin to edit a book or article or story, I spend some time coming to an understanding of three things: the author’s intent, the author’s style, and the subject matter. Sometimes, as with the technical books I edit for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, this is pretty straightforward, but with the other kinds of projects I take on, it can be more challenging. If I were to edit something for you, this is how I would approach it.

Intent: Writing is arguably the purest art form, because its subject matter is thought. (Even if the tools of our art are some version of quill and parchment.) I had it drilled into me, in workshops and classes, that you must respect the author’s intent. Different people write for different reasons: some people seeking editing help want to refine their journaling technique, some are journalists, some are novelists or short story writers. I can’t help them without understanding why they are writing.

Style: Editing is writing (and writing is editing, but that’s another story). You can’t edit someone’s work without damaging it if I haven’t internalized at least the broadest strokes of the author’s style. Sentence length and structure, word choice. Is the voice detached and objective or direct and personal? Does the author like to state a case and defend it or lead up to it as a logical conclusion? Whatever the author style is, I must not break it.

Subject: Obvious, but necessary. Is this romance or historical fiction, history or politics or computer science? I have to put the appropriate hat on before I put quill to parchment.

When I’ve done all that, and only then, do I feel I have the right to touch the author’s work. Because only then can I make it read the way the author would have written it if only…

A Rhyme for No Reason

I wrote a book of poems, which should be available in August or thereabouts. Sonnets, Villanelles, and other forms. Also a few Limericks. Here’s one in honor of Apple’s venerable assistant, Siri.

Siri

Siri, clear my pending pokes,
Tell me clean non-ethnic jokes,
Flush my cache and while you’re there,
Exorcise the vaporware.
Firewall all pain and toil,
Make the bed and change the oil.

Siri, tell me what I’m thinking,
Siri, ask me what I’m drinking.
Ask me if I’d like another.
Tell me I should call my mother.
Queue me up Rachmaninoff,
Siri, take the evening off.

Statement of the Perpetrator

I’ve been a writer all my life, and computers entered the picture pretty early. With Paul Freiberger I wrote the seminal history of the personal computer, Fire in the Valley, the basis for the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. I’ve written short stories and poetry and books and columns for magazines, and have had a long and productive career editing books and magazines. For decades I was associated with the pioneering personal computer software developers’ magazine, Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Here’s the long-form story:

Magazine Writing, Editing, & Management

Editor, PragPub, Pragmatic Bookshelf software developer magazine, 2009–2019.
Book Development Editor, Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2010-.
Editor-at-large, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, 1988–2008.
Editor, Southern Exposure Magazine, food/wine/tourism magazine, 2003–2008.
Editor, Unix Review, software industry magazine, 2000–2001.
Editor-in-chief/Associate Publisher, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, 1984–1988.
Senior Editor and member of launch team, InfoWorld, 1981–1984.
Co-author of the 20,000-word entry “History of Computing” in Encyclopedia Britannica.
Columnist/contributing writer/editor/editorial consultant, various publications in the United States, Germany, and Italy, including San Francisco Examiner, Upside, Farmer’s Almanac, MacUser, UnixReview, PC Magazin, Business Software, Whole Earth Catalog, Southern Oregon Magazine. Helped launch a book line and a number of magazines and newsletters. Forty-plus years of magazine editing and writing with about a jillion published articles.

Books

Fire in the Valley: the Making of the Personal Computer, 4th Edition from The Pragmatic Bookshelf, soon. Selected by Business 2.0 magazine as one of the 100 best business books of all time, made into a movie.
and:
Rhymes, a book of poetry, releasing this summer.
plus this old stuff:
Dr. Dobb’s HyperTalk Handbook, 1988.
Visual Quickstart Guide: RealBasic for Mac, 2003.
All About Steve Wozniak, 2018.
All About Barack Obama, 2019.

Other Media and Ventures

Co-author of book for movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, TNT, movie nominated for 5 Emmys, 1999.
Writer and model for comic strip character Max Netroom, Investigatore Virtuale, published by the Italian company WebEgg, 1998–2002.
Co-owner, Summer Jo’s Organic Farm, Restaurant, and Bakery, Grants Pass, Oregon, 1999–2013.

Swaine’s World

This is my personal blog, so the only consistency you can expect is that it will reflect my latest thoughts and interests — which include artificial intelligence, computer history, software development generally, poetry, humor, and reminiscences. Some of those thoughts may expand into books or longer essays or even a separate, specialized blog. When that happens, I’ll provide a pointer, for anyone who might be interested.

Coming Attractions

Thanks for reading. In the coming weeks, look for more writing advice, bulletins from the AI revolution, tech history, Swaine’s Flames flashbacks, Dirt Road Diaries, and book recommendations. Swaine’s World is free, but I’d be honored if you’d subscribed to the (cheap!) paid tier, which will give you access to the dusty hidden corners of Swaine’s World.