Some of these subjects are things I knew about, but could never really give anyone a 1 minute summary of the subject. For example, I struggled at first learning the concepts around encryption. Though I’ve learned the concepts over the years, the approach that author V. Anton Spraul takes probably would have helped me in the beginning. This book breaks the concept down by building on the simplest forms of encryption, the ones we probably learned on the back of a cereal box. It then reveals why they would fail as encryption methods for computer data, especially data transmitted over network and internet connections. Explaining why those simple concepts would fail is important; many people can’t understand the complexity of software because they are stuck on that cereal box example and can’t build a bridge from it to a more complex version of it. Let’s say we learned about decoder rings as kids, so this encryption concept called a "public key" seems silly. Huh, so everyone has the same decoder ring, then how does anyone’s data remain secure? This book bridges the gap between that rudimentary knowledge, and gets us off the wrong path of thinking, so we can begin to understand these complex subjects. There are actual encryption and decryption examples you can work through in order to get some hands-on experience in the subject too.
A lot of space is dedicated to security-related concepts; Encryption, Passwords, and Web Security make up 3 individual chapters in this 9 chapter book. That’s not a bad thing, but it just shows that you’ll be taken on a very thorough walk through the subject. The remaining chapters sprinkle in a bit of everything else: Movie CGI, Video Game Graphics, Data Compression, Search, Concurrency, and Map Routes.
This book will still require you to put in some mental work in order for you to get anything out of it. The thing is, this is no more mental work than a sudoku puzzle demands of you. It’s all in the approach you take on a subject. With How Software Works, you can be confident that you will be able to speak to someone about how your phone’s map software finds the shortest route for you. You might be able to get more out of the next press conference when they announce that next generation video game console, too. Really, there’s a whole lot you can apply this knowledge to, and it doesn’t have to be specifically a career in information technology.
Even with that mental work, you won’t be asked to learn anything too complicated or technology-specific in this book. Heck, you won’t even learn what an IP address is. Don’t get me wrong, having some background in information technology will help you understand this book, but the beauty of How Software Works is that both the layman and the IT professional can find it useful. The IT pro, buried in jargon and complex concepts all day, can use this book to distill concepts like encryption, search, and path finding algorithms into simpler ideas. Yes, you may actually be able to talk to other people without their eyes glazing over! For the non IT person, this book can help you realize that the complexity behind the technology you use every day is not just magic beyond your comprehension. It can also help you gain some confidence before diving into these subjects in more depth. And quite possibly, you can develop an interest in something your poor IT friends have been trying to talk to you about for years!
We are all different types of learners. A book like this may not be as helpful to a person who does the details first and then connects it all to the big, general picture later. For me, I wish I had this book many years ago when I was first learning these concepts in information technology courses. I would get stalled on the minute details of a subject simply because I doubted I was grasping the significance of the concept in relation to the big picture. Yes, you’ll still have to put a little mental work in to get the full benefit of this book, but if you’ve been discouraged by the complexity of subjects like how WiFi is encrypted, how web searches work, how data compression works, and others, you’ll likely love this book’s approach. And you’ll likely appreciate the technology that makes your life better just a bit more than you did before.
