Introduction

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Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” If we don’t know how something works, then it might as well be explained by supernatural forces. By that standard, we live in an age of magic.

Software is woven into our lives, into everyday things like online transactions, special effects in movies, and streaming video. We’re forgetting we used to live in a world in which the answer to a question wasn’t just a Google search away, or where finding a route for a car trip began with unfolding a cumbersome map.

But few of us have any idea how all this software works. ...

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