In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
Ratings19
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings19
Average rating3.8
This is "the Word" -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the "one man" is Neal Stephenson, "the hacker Hemingway" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.
Reviews with the most likes.
Picked this up for the first time in ~20 years. I read this many times at an impressionable age, and I credit it for influencing me to start the career path that I'm still on, and further, influencing me to be the type of computer user that I am (a Morlock, in the book's terms). I've internalized so much of the book that I don't feel like I'm really reading it anymore... it's more like, I'm watching sentences go by that are already in my head.
On the other hand, there are some sections that rub me the wrong way now. There's an attitude of elitism that doesn't feel right for me. I know that I was full of conceit and superiority when I was younger, so it would have appealed to me then, but it's kind of abrasive now.
