The Computer Contradictionary

The Computer Contradictionary - The MIT Press

second edition

Paperback (10 Apr 1995)

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Publisher's Synopsis

"Ascertain the meaning before consulting this dictionary," warns the author of this collection of deliberately satirical misdefinitions. New computer cultures and their jargons have burgeoned since this book's progenitor, "The Devil's DP Dictionary", was published in 1981. This updated version of Stan Kelly-Bootle's romp through the data processing lexicon is a response to the "Unix pandemic" that has swept academia and government, to the endlessly hyped panaceas offered to the MIS, and to the PC explosion that has brought computer terminology to a "hugely bewildered, lay audience.' The original dictionary, a pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work, parried chiefly the mainframe and mini-folklore of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This revision adds over 550 new entries and enhances many of the original definitions. Key targets are "a host of new follies crying out for cynical lexicography including: the GUI-Phooey iconoclasts, object orienteering and the piping of BLObs down the Clinton-Gore InfoPike."

Book information

ISBN: 9780262611121
Publisher: The MIT Press
Imprint: The MIT Press
Pub date:
Edition: second edition
Language: English
Number of pages: 255
Weight: 340g
Height: 226mm
Width: 152mm
Spine width: 18mm