Ellen Ullman is an American

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

and

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. She has written books, articles, and essays that analyze the human side of the world of computer programming. She has owned a consulting firm and worked as technology commentator for

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's ''

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''. Her breakthrough book was non-fiction: ''Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents''.

Life

Ullman's adoptive father's family included computer scientists and mathematicians who had a major impact on her decision to pursue software engineering, a field for which she did "not have native talent." Ullman earned a B.A. in English at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in the early 1970s. She began working professionally in 1978 as a programmer of electronic data interchange applications and graphical user interfaces. She eventually began writing about her experiences as a programmer. From 1994 until 1996, she published articles in ''Harper's Magazine'' and in the collections ''Resisting the Virtual Life'' and ''Wired Women''. She lives in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Bibliography

Books

* ''Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents'' San Francisco : City Lights Books, 1997. * ''Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology'' New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

Novels

* ''The Bug'' New York, N.Y. : Talese, 2003. * ''By Blood: A Novel'' New York, N.Y. : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

Selected articles and essays

* ''Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life'' (included in the 1995 collection ''Resisting the Virtual Life'', ) * ''The Myth of Order. The real lesson of Y2K is that software operates just like any natural system: out of control'' * ''The dumbing-down of programming'' * ''How to Be a 'Woman Programmer * ''Twilight of the crypto-geeks: Lone-wolf digital libertarians are beginning to abandon their faith in technology uber alles and espouse suspiciously socialist-sounding ideas.'' * ''Geeks Win: A survey of the oddballs who write the codes that make the 21st-century world go round'' * ''The Orphans of Invention'' * ''The Boss in the Machine'' * ''Identity Stolen? Take a Number'' * ''Dennis Ritchie''

References

External links

Interview with Salon magazine
(October 9, 1997)

(Fall 1998)

(May 21, 1999)
Interview with SF Gate
(May 8, 2002)

on The

WELL A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

(January, 2004)
Audio interview with Jon Udell
(October 6, 2006) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ullman, Ellen Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Writers from California Cornell University alumni American women computer scientists American computer scientists 21st-century American women