Think piece [history of computing]

Many of us who write about the history of computing have had hands-on professional experience with computers. We are familiar with the gap between a machine's promised performance and its actual behavior, the undocumented tricks that make jobs run smoothly, and the complex social networks through which knowledge and authority flow. Yet the day-to-day work that goes into computing is seldom represented in the histories we write. If we wish to know as much about the practice of computing as we currently know about its artifacts, we need to address some basic questions: who makes the computer function; what processes are involved in working with a computer; and what are the social relations of computing work.