But in terms of code itself, I do my best to convey how programming (and the world of code) feels. Admittedly, this is hard to do, but I talk about everything from different programming languages and what they are all about (and their vibes) to the unexpected power of global variables.

There is also a ton of computing history to be found in the book, which I think is vital for understanding the tech world (and building whatever comes next). We often see a certain amount of historical ignorance in tech, and that feels like a recipe for missing context, or unnecessary reinvention, or just plain not understanding the path dependence of this world. So I really try to explore that a lot.

> If coding really is like sorcery, what does this mean for how we think about computers?

and wondering whether Abelson/Sussman sort of wizardry makes an appearance or not.

In this case, we invited the author to redo his Show HN along with a sample chapter, since that is the Show HN convention for "sharing one's work" (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) when the work is a book.

It's as if we have the cure for cancer, but we only give it to people that are willing to watch 1 hour of ads every day. Like, yeah, the technology is great, but that social implication is terrifying.

To me, a book strictly about the wonder - ignoring these realities - feels.. vapid? dishonest? I don't want a word quite so loaded, but I'm struggling to find a better one.

This does hit home for me though. I'm currently working on a re-write of my pages on this subject on my website [0], where the current public version there really is overly complain-y and really misses the mark. The new version I'm working on explicitly alternates between negatives and positives, with sections that alternate between dark with light text and light with dark text to indicate the shift in tone and as much as I think that's beneficial for a reader, it's even more so for me as the author, to recognize when I'm writing too much in the "dark" section.

At the same time, I don't want to fall into the fallacy of moderation. If one side says climate change isn't real and one side does, it's not as if truth is somewhere in the middle. It's real. It's bad. Same for anything about computers. If I say right to repair, the DMCA, enshitification, etc. etc. are huge problems and pretend we're doing enough to fix them, that's just as dishonest.

Writing this has convinced me to pick up OP's book and read it, if for no other reason than to be inspired by the meta, the framing that I'm talking about - though I'm sure it'll be a good read in its own right. (Even if my prior, top-level comment about being unsure of the meat still holds)

[0] https://opguides.info/other/hci2/intro/