This is an easy-to-read book that any computer science enthusiast would treasure. Daniel Hillis, the founder of Thinking Machines, brings out basic concepts beautifully. The book’s nine short chapters can be read in a couple of days. The author’s subjective observations, which are thought provoking, are what make this book particularly interesting. Some examples:

• The principles are the essence of what makes a computer compute. Their essential nature transcends technology.
• A computer is a device that accelerates and extends our thought processes.
• A skilled programmer is like a poet who can put into words those ideas that others find inexpressible.

The author states in the preface that this is the book he wishes he had read while starting his learning in the computing field. I think that statement clearly gives the purpose of the book. This book should motivate the neophyte, and would be a good textbook at the high school level.

Taking a bottom-up approach, first explaining bits, Boolean logic, and then programming, it has interesting chapter titles such as “Nuts and Bolts” and “Universal Building Blocks.” The chapters have illustrations that enhance their value. The chapter on programming is made interesting and easy to read with the use of Logo. The hierarchy of abstraction, which the author summarizes, is beautifully brought out.

As the reader progresses, the author discusses Turing machines, quantum computers, parallel computers, algorithms, and heuristics. In the chapter on algorithms, the author states the inner feelings of computing researchers; that is, “one of the greatest joys in computer programming is discovering new, faster, and more efficient algorithms for doing something.”

The final three chapters are on parallelism, computers that learn and adapt, and “Beyond Engineering.” The author makes very interesting observations. Being an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, he discusses aspects of the human brain and how the computer can come closer to it.

The book will be good for beginners, but my impression is that it is an equally interesting read for practicing professionals. There is a tendency to make simple things complicated and add innumerable equations to make them harder to understand. But Daniel Hillis has taken the surprising viewpoint of simplifying the complex computing concepts and writing about them for a larger audience. The book is a treasure, and complements similar titles [1,2].

More reviews about this item: Amazon