The emerging interdisciplinary research field of software studies focuses on software systems and associated social and cultural effects. Interestingly, as humans we are not only partially defined by our active participation in cultural processes, social communities, and individual actions, but also this partial definition can be extended to include software code and software ecosystems of our creation. Who we are and how we interact with our surroundings continues to intrigue researchers. Further research in the field of software studies requires an exploration of software from more of a spatial perspective, examining the dyadic relationship of software code and space.

The authors of this book propose taking just such a spatial perspective to explore the underlying reasons for software code pervasiveness as part of human existence through the workings of networked software code access, adaptive software code automation, and intelligent internetworked software code. The authors suggest that, as humans, we should not underestimate the extent to which software code rather than humans increasingly manages the spaces that we move through in ordinary life. Theoretically, the authors point out, software will one day reach a ubiquitous state, becoming “everyware,” the ultimate convergence of hardware, software, and orgware (organizational-ware).

The book is divided into four major parts. In the first part, the authors establish the groundwork for a new vocabulary and devote an entire chapter to the construction of software. Software is more than an end result or a final product. Software represents a process in the transduction of space. The second part focuses on the difference that software makes to space and place. The topics include coding objects, transducing space, automated management, and creativity in software. In the third part, the authors provide examples of the relationship between software code and space for three representative real-world aspects of human life, air travel, home, and consumption.

In the final part in the book, the authors suggest that our future will depend on an understanding of the relationship between software code and space, given that our future will be very different from our past. In addition, the authors provide a “software matters” manifesto, a useful glossary, and a comprehensive list of relevant references.

I do not recommend this book to software practitioners due to its theoretical nature and lack of practical applications. However, this book is foundational for academic researchers where the authors provide a way of thinking about spatial information, smart cities, the post-industrial world, and a future world based on ubiquitous software code, software ecosystems, and ultimately everyware. Through this set of theoretical concepts and empirical methods for understanding how and why software matters, the academic researcher has an opportunity to further investigate software’s importance in everyday life in the 21st century.

I would also recommend Matthew Fuller’s book. I believe that it is both foundational and has applications that a practitioner would find useful.