The Computer Contradictionary

Stan Kelly-Bootle. MIT Press. Copyright © 1995. ISBN 0-262-61112-0.

This pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work is similar in format to the Jargon File (and quotes several entries from TNHD-2) but somewhat different in tone and intent. It is more satirical and less anthropological, and is largely a product of the author's literate and quirky imagination. For example, it defines computer science as “a study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the precision of the former and the success of the latter” and implementation as “The fruitless struggle by the talented and underpaid to fulfill promises made by the rich and ignorant”; flowchart becomes “to obfuscate a problem with esoteric cartoons”. Revised and expanded from The Devil's DP Dictionary, McGraw-Hill 1981, ISBN 0-07-034022-6; that work had some stylistic influence on TNHD-1.

This book has been mentioned in the following pages of the Jargon File: Bibliography.