Rating: 
Summary: Surfing The Third Wave Soon
Review: Reading this essay I realizeed that there is a /third way/ between GUI (Windowze/Mac OSs) and command line (generally Linux) and it is not BeOS (It is truly sad what happened to BeOS)! Without need to forget command line and avoiding traps of GUIs is to use better programming tools that hopefully will be extended to make GUI as malleable as writing code is getting now. To see how this can work for coding it is required to use a 3rd generation IDE such as Eclipse, IDEA, or my favorite CodeGuide. Those IDEs make "holy" trinity of edit, compile, link mentioned by Neal into one integrated seemlesly experience! Those 3rd generation IDEs allow to write code as easily as 1st generation (Emacs, VIs, ...) and make code wizards and assistant from 2nd generation IDEs to actually work in background only producing visual hints and not annoying dialog boxes. Now if the same could be applied to allow hacking GUI by ordinary users - just click Pi button and go ahead to reprogram your GUI and share it with others as easily as sending email ...
Sometimes Neal misses the point and go into strange places but sometimes he just hits jackpot like this metaphor for hacking universe - just this one metaphor makes worth to read it! Highly recommended read for any hacker. Now if we could hack our GUI as easily as we could hack universe ...
Rating: 
Summary: Wow. Fantastic.
Review: This book, available for free at Stephenson's website if you don't want to shell out eight bux, is amazing. As a hacker reading it was an almost religious experience; it caused me to begin experimenting with various Linux distributions. The non-technical may be bored. For hackers it is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: In the End... was the Command Line
Review: "The writing in this book is marvelously simpleminded and glib; the author glosses over complicated subjects and employs facile generalizations in almost every sentence." Or so says Neal Stephenson in the voice of his own virtual critic reviewing his book. Stephenson complains about Microsoft and Appple, celebrates Linux, and uses Disney as a metaphor for the metaphor of the OS. Stephenson then applauds Microsoft for taking out the drudgery of typing miles of code, describes Linux as a world of hyper-geeks who have rejected the mouse in favor of the command line, and suggests that the universe is actually a graphical user interface created by the Master Programmer. If all of this sounds a little confusing, then join the club! Stephenson seems to care a lot, but about what I have no idea. He makes some good points about how culture and technology meet in the way Microsoft and Apple market their error-prone products to customers who buy their stuff more as a way of being part of a group than as a choice to buy and use good technology, but he wanders off into mazes of techno-speak and stomps around in his own tar-pit, ranting about bad customer service and how a computer (an Apple) once ate one of his documents. In the end, he doesn't seem really mad at Microsoft and seems to think that being a herd of technically illiterates depending on MS for our next fix and making Bill Gates even richer might not be such a bad thing after all.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant - but free elsewhere
Review: I'm surprised to see this "book" for sale here.. you can download it from Neal Stephenson's own website, it comes to about 80 pages if you print it out on letter sized paper. I'm a new convert to Stephenson (I've read both Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash in the past couple of months) and find his writing brilliant. This "book".. really more like a very long essay.. is the only bit of nonfiction writing of Stephenson's that I'm familiar with. While the PC vs Mac, UNIX vs Windows discussions are interesting (I'm a PC user but I'm no techie), what really gets my blood flowing in this work is when Stephenson dares to get "philosophical" -- he's quite good at it. His take on postmodernism had me nodding in agreement and howling with laughter at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining read - but it is free online
Review: While I'm not sure Amazon.com would be thrilled with this review, I have to say that I'm not sure why one would want the printed copy of this book.
This book is available online and is an entertaining, well written read that doesn't suffer from the less than stellar endings that many of Stephenson's other books do since this is all non-fiction writing.
If you are the type of person that hates reading text on a computer screen and would much prefer to lay back on something soft and thumb through tactile pages of text to take in the story, then buy the book (or print it out off the net ).
If not, then just read the electronic version.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Text I could relate to.
Review: Having gone to college for CS, worked in a Comp-Lab while there, and assumed a programmers role in the 'real-world,' this book really hit home.I greatly enjoyed the converstion - as you almost feel like the book is a dialogue, not a one-sided text solely speaking to you. The amount I was compelled to agree - to the point of nodding my head and sometimes laugh at metaphors - just made the read very enjoyable and effortless.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick...
Review: While I did buy and read this book cover to cover in about 3 days, I regard that time spent as wasted. Stephenson, while a flashy fiction writer, left me wanting in this essay based on the evolution of the user interface. I will admit he managed to eek out a few brilliant remarks and commentary, (find the metaphor dealing with the OS car dealerships), but overall the essay was a poorly disguised rant. Stephenson manages to whine and carry on like a 8 year old with a stubbed toe for around 150 pages. I salute his fiction writing abilities, but the man is no sociologist.
Rating:
Summary: A Must for Media/Culture Students
Review: This book could be viewed as being about computers and operating systems -- to which point, it is now horribly dated. Much more of it is about communication and culture and cross-culture communication, which is all the more poignant as time does nothing to dillute how right it is. (The chapter on Disney is nothing short of _precious_.) Don't buy it to read about computers. Buy it to read about the world.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting exposition on one person's opinion
Review: This book is certainly an interesting look at the opinion of one person regarding operating systems. Neal Stephenson knows what he's talking about, but his analysis is largely subjective. The one concern I have -- and I wish the publisher would annotate the book to address this point -- is that the OS he ends up recommending (BeOS) does not exist any more! You get to the end of this (very slim) volume only to discover that his answer (written in 1999) is no longer a viable option.
Rating:
Summary: Simplistic but Fun...Just like Windows!
Review: I think Stephenson misses the point entirely. The PC beat the Mac because it managed to embrace computer gaming without being perceived as a toy. Let me ask you -- do you really think people buy 2 Ghz machines to run Office?
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