At last, an interesting book for engineers and computer scientists. Even so, they are not the only ones who will enjoy Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology.

Author David Gelernter, a Yale computer science professor, says beauty can and should be a factor in the way machines are conceived and built. This beauty involves an inspired mating of "simplicity and power," he writes.

If the author had his way, all computer scientists and software engineers would be given courses in drawing and art history. Their study of Michelangelo and Matisse, says Gelernter, would make their computer software and hardware beautiful and more functional.

He cites some sublime technological feats: the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, and the 1938 J3 steam locomotive as examples of beauty in technology. Only one computer achieved a degree of machine beauty, the original Apple Macintosh. Its interface acted like an office with file folders and trash cans and an area in which you could work in several program windows at once, he says. Software makers, says the author, add useless bells and whistles such as clocks that announce they are on U.S. Eastern time as if the user didn't know where he was.

The professor is not satisfied with hardware either, saying in his amusing way, that they are graceless, lumpy objects, and that most offices are an electronic "Model T."

The author provides an interesting, informative, and quick read. And he just might influence designers to come up with more beautiful software and equipment. That would be a plus.

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