A History of Computers is a site that takes a broad view of the history of computers. It includes a page on Ramon Lull and his significance, for example. There aren’t as many entries for modern computing advances, but a good spread over time.
Update: Thanks to Jacinda, I was alerted to the fact that the link above is not longer working. You can still see the site using the Wayback Machine.
I think what the author of the book is trying to get at is taht we have a tendency of thinking and programming as a form of science. He disagrees with this and suggests that we should be free to play and experiment with programming languages and how we write programs. it all fits with the hacker way of working: thinking outside the box, tinker and have fun with what you’re doing.
O’Reilly has a free chapter online which you can read at
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/hackpaint/chapter/ch02.pdf