In the Beginning...Was the Command Line Book

A dated look at the Linux, Windows and Mac OSes (written circa 1999). Stephenson's enthusiasm for anything cool and hackerish - solely based on it's hackerishness - is a trait that informs a lot of his fiction works in a very positive way (his ability to dive into technical miscellany and history, his enthusiasm in imagining where neat things are headed), but unfortunately backfires here, in a straightforward essay on then-modern operating systems and, eventually, why Linux is the best of them. (Well, BeOS specifically, which indeed was cool but has since died out.)

He seems to forget that computers are, to most people, tools. Even for the people who love to play around with them, at the end of the day you often just want to send an email, or get your job done, or save your file without losing it. In one chapter he asks, why run Windows when you could install Linux, install WINE (a Windows emulator) on top of that, and then run your Windows application? It's free and so much more awesome than just buying Windows! To which I say: Holy crap, Stephenson. Yes, it's certainly possible, but (especially back then, when Linux was still learning user-friendliness) that shit was tough, and required way more digging than I think most people would have been willing to give it. And all to achieve the exact same end as the easy path. Is it worth it? If your aim was simply to have something that *works*, then no. It is a perfectly valid and intelligent position to have, reflecting nothing more than priorities of where you choose to put your attention and time, and one which Neal Stephenson doesn't seem to recognize. (In one particularly eye-popping chapter, he equates people who use Windows and/or GUIs in general to people who go to Disneyland instead of traveling to a foreign country. Because, obviously, they're dumb and don't care about culture or what's real and true.)

He also argues that GUIs are for chumps, and if you are really serious about computers you'll be hacking it out at the command line. (To which I say: The command line itself is just another interface, a layer between you and the box, and based entirely on what people have chosen to write for it and how strong their code is.) He asserts that visual iconography isn't as strong, direct, and understandable as the written word. (Which, this one especially: huh?) He points out, with great disdain, how GUIs frame the information you work with in more understandable metaphors and hide complexities from the user. (That's the point, and, when done well, a good thing!) Overall: just sigh.

Now, I love Linux. I couldn't live without a CLI. And I liked a few parts of this book. He's a good writer, and is best here when he throws away his pretensions and writes about his struggles with all three of the OSes. I also liked it when he talked about how technology companies work on the basis of temporal arbitrage, which is a great and inspired way to frame the trend in technology to chase after the next big thing. He just misses the point so often here, and is so frustrating and condescending to read, that, in the end, it isn't quite worth it.

Two stars.