Customer Reviews

Programmers at Work

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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.

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.

Its very interesting to read about how programmers thought about their work almost 20 years ago. Offers interviews with a wide range of brilliant and colorful personalities, as well as samples of code they've written. Many of the products these programmers were working on are now staples of daily life like the PDF file format, the Word suite, and the Mac operating system.

This book is an excellent source of inspiration.

I enjoyed exploring the handwritten notes of fellow programmers, reading about their approaches to creating good systems and comparing them with my own.

Another interesting aspect is that "Programmers at work" helps us see how time changes the way people think. For example, in the past the goal was to make it small and efficient - today the constraints are much more relaxed; in the past people wrote their own compilers or their own file systems - this was "business as usual". They had to go "uphill, both ways" to interact with a computer... and they liked it :-)

No matter how good you are at programming, you'll be even better after you read this book.

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.