Programmers at work: Interviews

I bought this book so many years ago now I can't begin to remember, probably right after I graduated high school and realized that I couldn't even begin to imagine making a living doing anything but working with computers. Don't let the front cover or the publisher fool you, the interviews in here run the gamut and every one represents a seminal pioneer in our industry. These aren't just people who write code and sell products, these were the folks who *invented* some of the ideas that make up the foundation of our field. I re-read them every few years and am amazed at how much this book still has to teach me more than a decade after buying it. One of the other really neat things about this book is the way the personality of the people being interviewed shines through - you really get a feel for their style, sense of humor, and the way they think. I wish this book were still in print, I'd recommend it to all the young whipper snapperes out there who never had to load a BASIC program off a cassette or think in terms of using registers and memory addresses to get the job done. My dog eared copy will always occupy a hallowed place on my shelf.

When I read this book, it is not to see great work or poetry of code. It is not to admire the talented and yes brilliant people who are shown in a small space of a mosaic, no more grand in size or expertise than each single unique creative worker shown. I look at the pictures of the notes they wrote down while working and designing software--the external cognition of their symbolic processing. It reminds me I'm working and not finished, that one programmer can create important and creative works. That a programmer's time-sheets, notes, and visions are more valuable than what ships in a box-- Even for a killer app like pacman. (the best looking notes in the book - worth making into a poster) A working programmer is a person with a unique mind, a mental calculating and creative information processor and is often part of the initial limit and force of what software ships and where software lands. Bill Gates had some code (don't stare at it too long, just remember it followed pac-man) too and looked good showing it off ;-) enough to see him as more than profit driven (now it surfaces when I think of how much important research and advancement in computer science (formal methods, language theory [even logic sorts], whatever that fabric window interdesk is called (it was the slickest graphical interface I ever saw on Windows and it made me think of the pacman notes ... Microsoft gives to the world) (Personally, I would not purchase this book with any other cover. You'd know why if you had it.) This book is one I treasure, mostly for the real pictures (time-sheets) of programmers at work. Programmers at Work

If you are a programmer and want to know more about the great programmers that came before you this is an incredibly interesting read. It is long out of print and somewhat hard to find but work getting. There is another edition that is somewhat newer that is even harder to find - I cannot tell that there is enough difference to warrant hunting down the more expensive, harder to find version.

I have to say, this is a great book, almost unique in its scope; I wish there were more books like this. There are many collections of short biographies of mathematicians, and a few of computer scientists, but that's not quite the same as programmers. If you want to know what programmers do, the best thing is to read their code, but failing that (or in addition to that) you need to read interviews like this. I wish someone would do another book like this covering programmers of the last 15 years, but this one has a very good selection of programmers from the early PC era, and the interviews are very well-done: they let the programmer speak, yet the interviewer keeps them on track. I'm sure some people will object: "How can this be a great book; it's from Microsoft Press! It features Bill Gates on the cover! Four times larger than anyone else!" Perhaps it would be better if Gates' picture were smaller, but admit it -- how many of the other faces do you recognize? And the fact is, billg was an extremely influential programmer, and the interview with him is a good one. I liked it so much I was inspired to write a short fiction piece on the subject (search for "Y2K Saga"). But don't just take my word on this book: trust the "customers who bought this"; they're also buying heroes of the open source movement like Joel and ESR, as well as (to my mind) the two best author/consultants in the business, Demarco and Weinberg. It may still take you ten years to become an expert programmer, but carefully reading this book should speed up your quest, or at least let you understand better the programmers around you.

This is a detailed account of how some of the world's most famous programmers did their work. While this is obviously dated material, there is no question in my mind that this book should be put back into print. The insights into what it takes to be among the best at something, not just programming, make this book required reading for everyone, not just programmers.Through a series of biographical snapshots, we not only get glimpses into the personalities of some great and influential programmers, we learn about their thought processes. We also see that, as different as each person is from the other, they all share both a solution-oriented approach to the problems encountered and an incredible ability to persevere in the face of adversity. Most importantly, we learn that programming, like anything else in life, is but a means to an end and that it must be approached with the same vigour, creativity, and thoughfulness that guides the finest practioners of all human endeavors.Highly recommended.