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New essay collection explains the messy, human side of computer code

By Mark Brodie
Published: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 - 12:19pm

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Torie Bosch with You Are Not Expected To Understand This book cover
Aaron Salcido, Princeton University Press
Torie Bosch, editor of “‘You Are Not Expected to Understand This’: How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World”

Computer code plays a big role in our daily lives, whether or not we realize it. From policing to lawmaking to the next video we watch on our phones, code has a significant impact on lots of aspects of life — big and small. A new book of essays aims to explain the human side of code, and all that comes with that.

Torie Bosch is the editor of “‘You Are Not Expected to Understand This’: How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World.” It features historians, technologists and journalists writing about computer programming, who does it and why it works the way it does.

Bosch is also editor of Future Tense, which is a partnership of ASU, New America and Slate Magazine — covering the intersection of technology, policy and society.

What ties a lot of these essays together is code, which a lot of people think about as something humans don’t have anything to do with. But code is actually created by people like us, just with a lot more computer and other technical knowledge. Bosch joined The Show to talk more about it.

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