A fun and fact-filled guide for anyone who has ever wondered why a technology that runs virtually every aspect of our lives is so bafflingly weird

Software is an engineering material that has transformed human society in profound ways. It can truly work marvels—except when it doesn’t work. Part of the reason is that software is strange stuff to build with. It’s made of nothing, can do almost anything, but only does exactly what it’s told. Try Turning It Off and On Again reveals why it fails so often.

Each chapter of this lively and informative book opens with a question everyone has asked at one time or another, such as “Can you fix my printer?”; “What’s up with the Wi-Fi?”; “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”; “Is AI going to destroy my job?”; and “Where’s my flying car?” Using them as her points of departure, Le Goues reveals why those gremlins that crash our apps and cause our laptops to behave strangely can’t be attributed to technology alone. They are the byproducts of countless human decisions, miscommunications, questionable assumptions, and economic considerations that software engineers navigate every day. Along the way, Le Goues shares the fascinating history behind the software we increasingly rely on.

A user’s guide for the perplexed, Try Turning It Off and On Again explains what software is, how it’s made, and why its bizarre behavior has as much to do with human nature as it does with code.