Bitwise: A Life in Code

by David B. Auerbach

An exhilarating, elegant memoir and a significant polemic on how computers and algorithms shape our understanding of the world and of who we are   Bitwise is a wondrous ode to the computer lan­guages and codes that captured technologist David Auerbach’s imagination. With a philoso­pher’s sense of inquiry, Auerbach recounts his childhood spent drawing ferns with the pro­gramming language Logo on the Apple IIe, his adventures in early text-based video games, his education as an engineer, and his contribu­tions to instant messaging technology devel­oped for Microsoft and the servers powering Google’s data stores. A lifelong student of the systems that shape our lives—from the psy­chiatric taxonomy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to how Facebook tracks and profiles its users—Auerbach reflects on how he has experienced the algorithms that taxonomize human speech, knowledge, and behavior and that compel us to do the same.  Into this exquisitely crafted, wide-ranging memoir of a life spent with code, Auerbach has woven an eye-opening and searing examina­tion of the inescapable ways in which algo­rithms have both standardized and coarsened our lives. As we engineer ever more intricate technology to translate our experiences and narrow the gap that divides us from the ma­chine, Auerbach argues, we willingly erase our nuances and our idiosyncrasies—precisely the things that make us human.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Memoir, Biography, Science, Programming, Stem

270 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 28, 2018

About the author

I am a writer, technologist, and software engineer. I am the author of MEGANETS (PublicAffairs, 2023) and BITWISE (Pantheon, 2018). I live in New York with my family and 5000 books.

Reviews

[Andrew Rangel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book was a disappointment for me. From a high level this book isn’t really about programming or technology. Realistically it is more like a memoir, and Auerbach uses it as a way to ruminate about subjects he finds interesting. He does play into some of the programmer stereotypes which I feel like is unfortunate.

Overall this book covers thoughts on psychiatry, Dungeons and Dragons, literature, marriage, and raising kids. It lacks an overarching storyline or single point that he drives home at the end.

This feels more like a collection of speeches or blog posts that he has complied into a book, but lacking that glue that ties it all together. I can’t recommend this book.

[Andrew Skretvedt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Impression: it's not a bad book. On the back of the jacket, Jordan Ellenberg gave it this send-up, "filtering insider technical know-how through a profoundly humanistic point of view like no book since Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid."

Wow. Considering GEB won a Pulitzer Prize, this is very high praise indeed. I like Ellenberg. I've read How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, giving it four stars (without writing a review here). So, I accepted his opinion as a qualified authority. Like no book since. Well, thinking carefully, I suppose "like no book since" can mean simply remarkable without precisely fixing whether it reached the high-water mark of the thing it's being compared to, or surpassed it.

And that's sad, because this book is no GEB. Not even. I'm sure. And it's doubly-sad because between GEB and this book, Jordan Ellenberg's send-up means to suggest there's nothing else of note.

Meh. I don't know about all that either. While not about the same subject exactly, David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity did a fantastic job explaining to me good reasons to be optimistic about our future, despite all our problems. Bitwise was trying somehow to be a warning about...about...(ennui derails the reviewer, who wandered away from the paragraph).

I concur with other reviewers here who've turned in 2-3 star reports about this book's audacious goals which don't seem to land. Go read some of them for details. Toward the end, I struggled to maintain motivation to press ahead and finish. I have done, finding and wincing at themes that seem preposterous and perhaps misapprehended by the author [placeholder for examples].

But, read strictly as a successful coder's memoir and personal story about the fascination of a parent watching his child develop, it does have its delights. That's enough, I suppose.

Hey! If you have the edition with the white jacket with black and green printing, be sure to expose the cover's green print to strong light and then go to a very dark room. It glows like a CRT from the 1980s!


Unlike GEB, this book will not win a Pulitzer. I wonder if either the author or Ellenberg feels embarrassed about that send-up. Re-reading it, now that I've finished the book, I cringe.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had kind of a mixed reaction to this book-- I found the first section, which comes closest preoperly a memoir, kind of dull when I wasn't confused by Auerbach's explanation of code, which included short programs in logo and other languages that went right over my head. At first, I was like, they are only here to show visual difference from English, but then, it was like he expected you to be able to parse them some. So, that section, which in theory sets the stage for the ruminations to follow, was kind of a wash for me.

But I really liked the middle section, which I thought was a very lucid treatment of the risks inherent in giving over autonomy and decision making to algorithms. It's not like I've never heard of this concern before, but I thought Auerbach was very especially lucid about this. The third section wasn't quite as explosive, but it was still good, even though his metaphor about programming his baby didn't really work for me.

So, a pretty good book that I think addresses the tech with experience and a sophisticated understanding. It would make a better NYer article than a book purporting to tell the story of a life, but so be it.

[Talia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had some interesting ideas but never really developed them fully :((((
He also writes his chapters like how I would write my GP essays. An example: Technology has immense potential to radically transform the way we communicate.. he sprinkles these thesis statements into his paragraphs whenever he feels like we need to be reminded of the point that he’s making.. like he’s linking to his Thesis( Technology is Impactful) …I see U… David Auerbach.. I get it.. ayyy

[Max Hallinan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't find an original or even an interesting idea in this book. If you combine "Code" by Charles Petzold and "Life in Code" by Ellen Ullman, and make the result boring, you will have created "Bitwise". The thoughts in this book are stunningly bland.

[Jennifer Houghton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes you just have to acknowledge the limitations in the topic. I simply couldn’t wade through the coding sections to remain fully in the narrative. So, life is short and I just sadly have to let this one go. I’ve got a much more engaging book on quantum physics 😬

[W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is what first inspired me to learn to code. I forgot the name of it until now, so I'm adding it retrospectively. 5 Stars for the impact it had on me. But probably not a good book if you already know anything about code. I just remember that this book, for the first time, made programming seem exciting.

[Bill Prange · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way more than I expected from its title.
The book was simply written yet it clearly discussed a number of complex ideas.
The author has one foot firmly planted in the geek world of code and the other just as firmly planted in the intellectual world of literature and philosophy. It contains both a clear explanation of why current artificial intelligence is nowhere near challenging human intelligence, and it also discusses the multiple frames of reference that James Joyce used in Finnegan’s Wake. This is a man equally at home in both of CP Snow’s Two Worlds.
It is also part autobiography. Without being the least bit egotistical he describes how he grew to be the person he became. He charmingly describes his fascination with his newborn son and how he kept track of the baby’s progress using the framework of version updates on a complex software project. If I remember correctly his son advanced to version 3.0 when he was able to roll over. Of course, he was just doing this for fun, but it illustrates the way he integrates the different worlds in his life.
Regardless of where your interests lie I can almost guarantee that you will enjoy this book.

[Two Readers in Love · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a series of essays, and some hit home with me more than others; but as this is the second compuster science memoir I've read with the subtitle "A Life in Code," apparently it is a formula that works on me in general.

I particualrly enjoyed the ancedote about the early battles between MSN Messenger Service as a direct and AOL's AIM instant messeger in the late 90s. (Originally published in n+1: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essa...)
---
Quoted on p. 77 - "Science has many battles, but the expectation is always that any scientific idea is bound to be either true or false, and that we will know which sooner or later. It is an unfortunate but understandable side effect that many scientists believe such definite answers can also be obtained on political and moral questions." Robert Musil, "The Man Without Qualities" 1995.

[Iván Ferreira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un vistazo a una vida dedicada a la programación y a los libros; una mirada íntima a lo que es el mundo de los gigantes tecnológicos y sus algoritmos, y más allá de una carrera dedicada a la tecnología, una vida cultivada por los libros, que genera dudas y reflexiones sobre nuestra relación con el mundo digital

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful and thoughtful writing which never engages in its thoughts for long enough to satisfy. It ripples along a surface, perhaps lightly to encourage broader appeal. But, if so, its language betrays that purpose.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really torn w/ this book. I can tell the author has a lot of topics he wants to cover but he just bit off more than he can chew.

First I can relate to him, we're of a certain age, he's a nerd, i'm a nerd, i gamed, he games. getting a pentium w/ a built in 56kbps modem was a big deal.

I enjoyed the beginning where he's talking about the apple 2e. Incidentally i learned on one of those as well at school. The problem is that it's not quite a memoir, he jumps to college, working at tech companies and being at the initial beginning like creating instant messaging.

He jumps around a lot: they tie together but he doesn't stay on a topic long enough to really make any mark and it's less cogent than he expects.

A lot of it is pretty basic stuff I already knew. Yes, the DSM3,4 is flawed and it's main use is in taxonomy being able to group people and that's why fb, google and apple does. they can target what you see based on what you like and if you don't coment or like things too much than perhaps you show up less frequently in your friend's feed. Also, emoticons, the six fb uses is just enough for categorization which makes easy statistical data collection. Yeah, all of this is flawed and it's interesting but what I really wanted to know more about was coding. He briefly touches on it but my intro to logic gives more indepth info about truth tables.

the book just doesn't have a place: it's not quite a memoir because he doesn't give that much info about his personal life (there's some about him and his wife and kids) and how teaching kids is like programming a new system but everything is a bit of a stretch. he wants to tie everything to his central thesis. it's definitely not a coding overview there were a few terms but not much and it attempts to be a polemic about ai's and how everything is getting connected via our information that the big 3 is collecting but there's no solutions offered and it's pretty obvious to everyone without him pointing out.

I didn't hate it, I listened to this on audiobook while bike riding and it was just easy enough material to digest without require too much attention.

[Luke M · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, though the text can be a bit disjointed at times and sometimes verges on repetitive. Auerbach details his lifelong experience with spoken/written language, admitting that proficient manipulation of English has been a persistent challenge for him. After all, the central theme of the work is the interpretation of the world through the vocabulary and structure of computer code rather than natural language. Despite challenges with verbosity and repetition, Auerbach still expresses many stimulating ideas quite eloquently.

One of the most enjoyable components of the narrative is Auerbach's inclusion of thought-provoking excerpts of art, literature, and philosophy from many thinkers who inspired his work. A mid-book memoir and exploration of text-based adventure games stands out as perhaps the most engaging section. As a result of finishing the book, I have a list of authors, artists, and game designers whose work I would like to investigate further. Even if not all the ideas are his own, Auerbach does a great job of selling the reader on groundbreaking and thought-provoking pieces of art.

I agree with other reviewers that there appears to be no comprehensive thesis. The book does not follow the exploration of a thesis to its conclusion, rather, it contains a variety of (often) related observations and personal experiences. If I had been expecting a compelling, linear narrative on the outset, I might have come away disappointed.

[Kristen Wegner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was more rambling than I first anticipated it would be—something about the author’s depth and breadth of sources (philosophy! 1980s computer games! Programming! Hoity-toity literature!) made me think that there’d be one argument explicitly crafted throughout the piece. (Something along the lines of “computers see the world differently than humans, which is their weakness when we utilize them/integrate with them in our societies. This is unavoidable because computers are computers. Oh well.”)

Something about the book, in my reading, kept the author’s feelings on the subject obscured* until the last pages, where he laments the potential future where humanity has been traded in full-scale for acquiescence to technological reality a la Facebook. After the journey of the authors life through tech and human society, the message was more wholesome and humanistic than I had anticipated.

*perhaps because I lost track of any need for any particular argument? I enjoyed reading David’s take on life and how it relates to the experiences and knowledge he collects.

[Joel Cigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was too technically written — almost archaic for the average civilian American to digest and thus a rather chore to read. The author, Auerbach, does give a short history of computing in the first third of the book starting with his time programming in Logo for the Apple IIe.

During the second half of the memoire, Auerbach spends considerable time discussing The Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM which confused me as a reader on how this relates to computers.

The overall theme of the book is that algorithms across computer networks are analyzing our social media profiles and selling that data to third-parties or data analysts. He specifically mentions FaceBook and it’s “LIKE” button. Normal civilians are becoming “pancake people” as the nation spreads wide and thin over networks.

Overall, I could have passed up this book as it was just too archaic for me.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was presented to me as an autobiography by my library lending system. This is not the term I use for this book. This book is written as part memoir and part long diversions into selected subjects of particular interest to the author. If you’re expecting a deep visit into who the author is, you’ll be disappointed. It’s more a loosely organized collection of his interests.

Also a computer programmer, I thoroughly enjoyed his long discussions of labeling and role-playing games. Although I enjoyed this greatly, I think the author can come off as long-winded. If you don’t share his interests, it’s easy to lose steam in a chapter that’s chosen to arbitrarily zoom in on one subject or another. You might find yourself wondering why we are still discussing a topic.

To me this is a five star book, but that rating is based on a very personal opinion and good alignment with the interests of the author. Does this book deliver what it says on the tin? I’m not sure.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the beginning of this book very much. The nostalgia of the good old days whey personal computers where new. His observations of the nature of programming and of communication and life in general.

But the further I got in the book, the more he comes with his opinion on how things are, explaining over and over again that categories and labels never fully express who we really are, and that thus computers don't really know us. That seems pretty obvious to me, but the author suggests that we are forgetting it. He explains it in a meandering way that I do not find convincing, and somewhat boring, I'm almost sorry to say because I did come to like the author from all he told about himself in this book.

[Francis Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, anyone front-loading their book with Brecht Evens illustrations wins my vote for sure.

As a software developer myself, I love having coders connect the minutia of their craft with the 'real world', so to speak. It's like a translator explaining how speech is transformed when passing from one language to another: what gets lost, what gets enriched, what gets flattened. Code an abstraction of reality which impacts the very reality it abstracts! Auerbach perfectly captures this paradox in a series of short essays that flow beautifully into each other without trying to hammer in One Big Idea. It's a pleasure to read and perfect for getting the reflective juices flowing.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part nerd memoir, part overview of different ways of encoding/modelling humanity. We love to taxonomize and label our characteristics and behaviours, and have found in computers and algorithms ideal collaborators to analyze and monetize our every distinctions. For sorters, systemizers and lovers of data.

I enjoyed sections (the early messenger code wars, that mandatory mbti obsession, seeing your kids evolution in terms of software upgrades, ..) but in total this lacked some cohesiveness and couldn't quite settle on what it wanted to be. And it definitely had too much D&D talk.

[Mike Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author is intelligent and a good writer with interesting experience in the world of code. Unfortunately he doesn't go too deep into it.
Some interesting chapters in this book that made me finish it. If anything it gives an interesting look into the mind of a silicon valley programmer. The book has a liberal bias (what would you expect) but it's only blatantly expressed in few chapters that feel bit forced. He is not as "woke" as others and even seems to carefully critique some of the wackier stuff.

[Greer Andjanetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that drifts off-topic too much. The computer history and insights are quite interesting but the pages of description of the author's interaction with his baby daughter are irrelevant and too self-absorbent. The author also has a tendency to overuse his vocabulary, often hiding the point he wishes to make. Trimmed of all the irrelevant sections, a book about 2/3 the size would be much more interesting and easy to read.

[Mustapha Safadieh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very little to do with code at all. The only enjoyable chapters were those that discussed the author's time at Microsoft and Google, which unfortunately were very short.

Why on earth do you need to ramble on about DnD and Myers Briggs? I'd say this was the most boring book I've read on the subject yet, but the author covers very little on computer science or programming I don't know that I can classify it as a book about either subject.

[Karl Georg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inside this book, there are actually two books: One about computers and networks that imperfectly represent us humans and our world, that have become an important element of our environment, that we are connected with in a feedback loop, and that this profoundly impacts us. And another one, which is the author's autobiography. Both are interesting in their own right, but to me rolling them into one does not work too well and does neither part fully justice.

[Antonio Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very ambitious but doesn’t quite land

There is a great book to be written at the intersection of computing in literature but this one is not it. What starts as an exploration of someone who grew up in the 80s with computers worked with them professionally and then became a writer meanders into parenting, society, big data and literature at large in a very confused world.

[Brian Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ruminative memoir of a programmer with some interesting insights and war stories (in the first third) that leads though a discussion of literature and finally focusing on human development, writing as a father.

This book pretty much couldn't be better aimed for me to enjoy; it's not a book that will necessarily change anybody's life, but it was pleasantly engrossing.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Google organized it by pages, Amazon by products, and Facebook by people.”

A former software engineer at Microsoft and Google expresses his concern that computers are currently classifying humans with Big Data into simplistic falsehoods. His parents both being psychiatrists and his love of the humanities help him flesh this out in an enjoyable memoir.

[Tom Haughton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanders about on various subjects - logic, literature, child development, computer games, the evolution of social media into data classification and labeling for profiling consumers. Interesting, but mostly in providing areas upon which to read further... think I may be ready for “Finnegans Wake” now.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would consider the book hard to read, but for different reasons than usual. I kept getting sidetracked by all of the things in this book that I found interesting. Even with things that I am well aware of, I would find some items of interest. I would certainly recommend to people that are into computers or computer history.

[Michael Gallipo · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the end of the day this was okay but I am not really sure what the book was trying to be. There wasn’t enough “meat” about his experiences to be a true memoir (though some of the MSN Messenger stuff was interesting). And the more philosophical sections didn’t really seem to be tied together by much of anything.

[MGF · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book (effectively) about what we gain and lose with the growth of computers / the internet told in somewhat of a memoir format. I have to admit that a lot of the technical bits went over my head and it can be dry at times, but useful nonetheless.