Papers by Nathan Ensmenger
Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries (review)
Technology and Culture, 2006
Reviewing a book written by the originator of an influential school of historical interpretation ... more Reviewing a book written by the originator of an influential school of historical interpretation presents a unique challenge. The most succinct description of Inventing the Electronic Century is that it is a Chandlerian history of the consumer electronics industry. Had the book been written ...
Technological Turf Wars: A Case Study of the Computer Antivirus Industry
Technology and Culture
The Environmental History of Computing
Technology and Culture
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Although it never received much respect from computer scientists, the Common Business Oriented La... more Although it never received much respect from computer scientists, the Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) is one of the most influential programming languages in the history of computing (and, even more surprisingly, to this day one of the most widely used). Even today, more than a half-century after its original invention, it remains one of the most widely used programming languages, a testament to the durability of the seemingly ephemeral object we call "software." From the very beginning, one of the defining design features and selling points of COBOL was its "English-like" syntax, which allegedly made it more "readable." In his article "Common Language: Business Programming Languages and the Legibility of Programming," Ben Allen explores the history of the decision to design COBOL to be "English-like." Whether or not the resemblance between COBOL and (a very historically and culturally specific) human language made it easier to write or read programs, Allen argues, the resemblance between COBOL code and English-language business writing "made programming itself more legible to the people responsible for purchasing machines and hiring programmers." At a time in which corporate managers were trying to figure out how electronic digital computers might be made useful to their organizations, the potential of COBOL to be read and understood by laypeople was significant. In this it was not so much the universal human-like characteristics of language that was compelling (the meaningful keywords of COBOL can, and were, easy to translate into German or French, for example), but the specific appeal to a particular audience: COBOL was to be written like English because that was the language American business managers would recognize as significant. If the important English-language words in COBOL could simply be substituted out arbitrarily, then what you had was just another code, and not a real language-at least according to the decision makers at Remington Rand UNIVAC, the company by whom Grace Hopper, the principle designer of COBOL, was employed. And while, as many contemporary programmers believed, and Allen readily admits, the English-like syntax and unnecessary verbosity of COBOL did not, for the most part, contribute to better, more efficient, or even more readable computer programs, it did serve an important function within the nascent computer industry: what proved most "common" about the Common Business Oriented Language was not so much its platform independence or broad applicability in the business context, but the discursive and marketing value of the concept of "English-like."
The History of Design in Computing
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Information & Culture
In much of the literature on the information society, its defining charac teristic is assumed to ... more In much of the literature on the information society, its defining charac teristic is assumed to be its immateriality. That is to say, as our inter actions and activities become less dependent on the movement of atoms and more focused on the manipulation of bits, they seem less limited by the con straints of physical reality. But when we look closely at the material under pinnings of the information economy-from the minerals that make up digital devices to the massive amounts of energy and water required to power data centers-it becomes clear that information technologies are firmly grounded in the physical environment. In fact, information tech nologies continuously shape not only the physical environment but also representations of the relationship between natural and built worlds.
The Multiple Meanings of a Flowchart
Information & Culture, 2016
A commentary on David A. Hounshell's commentary on "software as labor process
ABSTRACT
Osiris, 2015
Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, male computer experts were able to successfully transform... more Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, male computer experts were able to successfully transform the "routine and mechanical" (and therefore feminized) activity of computer programming into a highly valued, well-paying, and professionally respectable discipline. They did so by constructing for themselves a distinctively masculine identity in which individual artistic genius, personal eccentricity, anti-authoritarian behavior, and a characteristic "dislike of activities involving human interaction" were mobilized as sources of personal and professional authority. This article explores the history of masculine culture and practices in computer programming, with a particular focus on the role of university computer centers as key sites of cultural formation and dissemination.
Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education - SIGCSE '16, 2016
Thesis: 'Building Castles in the Air': Science, Craft, and Aesthetics in the History of Information Technology
STSC 260: Cyberculture
ABSTRACT
HSSC 550: The Information Sciences Spring 2005
Nathan Ensmenger - Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age (review) - Technology and Culture 48:4
The Professionalization of Programming
Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, 2010
The Rise of Computer Science
Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, 2010
Introduction: Computer Revolutionaries
Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, 2010
A Commentary on David A. Hounshell’s Commentary on “Software as Labor Process”
History of Computing: Software Issues, 2002
ABSTRACT
Making Programming Masculine
Why Women are Leaving Computing, 2010
In the April 19 (7 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, sandwiched between such conventional women&... more In the April 19 (7 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, sandwiched between such conventional women's magazine fare as Te Bachelor Girls of Japan and A Dog Speaks: Why a Girl Should Own a Pooch, appeared a curious little essay entitled simply Te Computer Girls. ...
Software as Labor Process
History of Computing: Software Issues, 2002
For almost as long as there has been software, there has been a software crisis. 1 Laments about ... more For almost as long as there has been software, there has been a software crisis. 1 Laments about the inability of software developers to produce products on time, within budget, and of acceptable quality and reliability have been a staple of industry literature from the early ...
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Papers by Nathan Ensmenger