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Clive Thompson

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World Hardcover – March 26, 2019

by Clive Thompson (Author)

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Hello, world.

Facebook's algorithms shaping the news. Self-driving cars roaming the streets. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code--and coders are the ones who built it for us. From acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson comes a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today, computer programmers, in a book that interrogates who they are, how they think, what qualifies as greatness in their world, and what should give us pause. They are the most quietly influential people on the planet, and Coders shines a light on their culture.

In pop culture and media, the people who create the code that rules our world are regularly portrayed in hackneyed, simplified terms, as ciphers in hoodies. Thompson goes far deeper, dramatizing the psychology of the invisible architects of the culture, exploring their passions and their values, as well as their messy history. In nuanced portraits, Coders takes us close to some of the great programmers of our time, including the creators of Facebook's News Feed, Instagram, Google's cutting-edge AI, and more. Speaking to everyone from revered "10X" elites to neophytes, back-end engineers and front-end designers, Thompson explores the distinctive psychology of this vocation--which combines a love of logic, an obsession with efficiency, the joy of puzzle-solving, and a superhuman tolerance for mind-bending frustration.

Along the way, Coders thoughtfully ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy. Programmers shape our everyday behavior: When they make something easy to do, we do more of it. When they make it hard or impossible, we do less of it. Thompson wrestles with the major controversies of our era, from the "disruption" fetish of Silicon Valley to the struggle for inclusion by marginalized groups.

In his accessible, erudite style, Thompson unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first coders -- brilliant and pioneering women, who, despite crafting some of the earliest personal computers and programming languages, were later written out of history. Coders introduces modern crypto-hackers fighting for your privacy, AI engineers building eerie new forms of machine cognition, teenage girls losing sleep at 24/7 hackathons, and unemployed Kentucky coal-miners learning a new career.

At the same time, the book deftly illustrates how programming has become a marvelous new art form--a source of delight and creativity, not merely danger. To get as close to his subject as possible, Thompson picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding skills as he reckons, in his signature, highly personal style, with what superb programming looks like.

To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. With Coders, Thompson gives a definitive look into the heart of the machine.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Press
Publication date

March 26, 2019
Dimensions

6.38 x 1.36 x 9.58 inches
ISBN-10

0735220565
ISBN-13

978-0735220560
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fascinating. Thompson is an excellent writer and his subjects are themselves gripping. . . . [W]hat Thompson does differently is to get really close to the people he writes about: it’s the narrative equivalent of Technicolor, 3D and the microscope. . . . People who interact with coders routinely, as colleagues, friends or family, could benefit tremendously from these insights.” —Nature

“With an anthropologist’s eye, [Thompson] outlines [coders’] different personality traits, their history and cultural touchstones. He explores how they live, what motivates them and what they fight about. By breaking down what the actual world of coding looks like . . . he removes the mystery and brings it into the legible world for the rest of us to debate. Human beings and their foibles are the reason the internet is how it is—for better and often, as this book shows, for worse.” —The New York Times Book Review

“An outstanding author and long-form journalist. . . . I particularly enjoyed [Thompson’s] section on automation.” —Tim Ferriss

“The best survey to date of this world and its people . . . An avalanche of profiles, stories, quips, and anecdotes in this beautifully reported book returns us constantly to people, their stories, their hopes and thrills and disappointments. . . . Fun to read, this book knows its stuff.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[An] enjoyable primer on the world of computer programmers. . . . Coders are building the infrastructure on which twenty-first century society rests, and their work has every chance of surviving as long, and being as important, as the Brooklyn Bridge—or, for that matter, the Constitution.” —Bookforum

“Thompson delivers again with this well-written narrative on coders, individual histories, and the culture of coder life, at home and work. . . . In addition to analyzing the work-life of coders, he brilliantly reveals several examples of how they live in their respective relationships. Throughout, Thompson also does a great job exploring the various drivers that permeate the industry: merit, openness of code, long coding stints without sleep, and how the culture tends toward start-up culture even when companies are established. This engaging work will appeal to readers who wish to learn more about the intersection of technology and culture, and the space in which they blur together.” —Library Journal, starred review

“Thompson offers a broad cultural view of the world of coders and programmers from the field’s origins in the mid-twentieth century to the present. In this highly readable and entertaining narrative, he notes the sense of scale and logical efficiency in coding and the enthusiasm with which programmers go about creating new features and finding bugs. . . . [A] comprehensive look at the people behind the digital systems now essential to everyday life.”—Booklist

“Looks at some of the stalwarts and heroes of the coding world, many of them not well-known. . . . Thompson is an enthusiast and a learned scholar alike. . . . Fans of Markoff, Levy, Lanier, et al. will want to have a look at this intriguing portrait of coding and coders.” —Kirkus

“In this revealing exploration of programming, programmers, and their far-reaching influence, Wired columnist Thompson opens up an insular world and explores its design philosophy’s consequences, some of them unintended. Through interviews and anecdotes, Thompson expertly plumbs the temperament and motivations of programmers. . . . [Coders] contains possibly the best argument yet for how social media maneuvers users into more extreme political positions. . . . Impressive in its clarity and thoroughness, Thompson’s survey shines a much-needed light on a group of people who have exerted a powerful effect on almost every aspect of the modern world.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"As a person who has spent a lot of time writing code, I can confirm that you need to be a little bit of a weirdo to love it. Clive Thompson’s book is an essential field guide to the eccentric breed of architects who are building the algorithms that shape our future, and the AIs who will eventually rise up and enslave us. Good luck, humans!” —Jonathan Coulton, musician

“Clive Thompson is more than a gifted reporter and writer. He is a brilliant social anthropologist. And, in this masterful book, he illuminates both the fascinating coders and the bewildering technological forces that are transforming the world in which we live.” —David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon

“With his trademark clarity and insight, Clive Thompson gives us an unparalleled vista into the mind-set and culture of programmers, the often-invisible architects and legislators of the digital age.” —Steven Johnson, author of How We Got to Now

“If you have to work with programmers, it’s essential to understand that programming has a culture. This book will help you understand what programmers do, how they do it, and why. It decodes the culture of code.” —Kevin Kelly, senior maverick for Wired

“Clive Thompson is the ideal guide to who coders are, what they do, and how they wound up taking over the world. For a book this important, inspiring, and scary, it’s sinfully fun to read.” —Steven Levy, author of In the Plex

“It’s a delight to follow Clive Thompson’s roving, rollicking mind anywhere. When that ‘anywhere’ is the realm of the programmers, the pleasure takes on extra ballast. Coders is an engrossing, deeply clued-in ethnography, and it’s also a book about power, a new kind: where it comes from, how it feels to wield it, who gets to try—and how all that is changing.” —Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“Clive Thompson has deftly picked apart the myth of a tech meritocracy. Guiding readers through the undercovered history of programming’s female roots, Coders points with assurance to the inequities that have come to define coding today, as both a profession and the basis of the technology that shapes our lives. Readable, revealing, and in many ways infuriating.” —Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad

“Code shapes coders, and coders shape the code that changes how we think, every day of our lives. If you want to create a more humanistic digital world, read this book to get started.” —Sherry Turkle, professor at MIT; author of Reclaiming Conversation and Alone Together

“Thompson has accomplished the nearly impossible task of portraying the coding world exactly as it is: messy, inspiring, naive, and—at times—shameful. Coders is a beautifully written and refreshingly fair portrayal of a young industry that’s accomplished so much and still has a lot to learn.” —Saron Yitbarek, CEO and founder of CodeNewbie

About the Author

Clive Thompson is a longtime contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired. He is the author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press (March 26, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0735220565
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735220560
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 0.056 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.38 x 1.36 x 9.58 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #280,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #360 in Social Aspects of Technology
- #392 in Computers & Technology Industry
- #2,842 in Computer Programming (Books)

Customer Reviews:
204 ratings

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Clive Thompson

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Clive Thompson is a longtime contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired.

As a child growing up in Toronto of the 1970s and 80s, Clive Thompson became fascinated with the first “home computers”—the ones you plugged into your TV, like the Commodore 64, and programmed using BASIC. He was hooked, spending hours writing video games, music programs, and simple forms of artificial intelligence. The obsession stuck with him, even as he went to the University of Toronto to study poetry and political science. When he became a magazine writer in the 1990s, the Internet erupted into the mainstream, and he began reporting on how digital tools—everything from email to digital photography to instant messaging—was changing society.

Today, Thompson is one of the most prominent technology writers—respected for keeping his distance from Silicon Valley hype and doing deeply-reported, long-form magazine stories that get beyond headlines and harness the insights of science, literature, history and philosophy. In addition to the New York Times Magazine and Wired, he's a columnist for Smithsonian Magazine, writing about the history of technology, and writes features for Mother Jones. His journalism has won many awards -- including an Overseas Press Council Award and a Mirror Award -- and he's a former Knight Science Journalism Fellow.

In his spare time he’s also a recording and performing artist with the country/bluegrass band The Delorean Sisters.

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3 star		11%
2 star		5%
1 star		1%

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jseliger

There is a good book somewhere inside this grievance studies tome

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2019

<em>Coders</em> is a sign of its times: instead of comprehensively covering the topic of code, how it works, and where it comes from, Thompson does some of that, which is to be commended, and a lot of fomenting discord through relentless stereotypes about race and sex. He seems to believe women and some people, based on the color of their skin, cannot code as some other groups can, and that implication is disconcerting, pervasive, and annoying in his book.

But Thompson cannot help himself; he is a creature of the media and he doesn't realize the bogosity of the water in which he swims. Instead of focusing on the product and how it is made, he focuses on the race and gender of the people making it. Software can be written by anyone; that is a topic to be celebrated. Thompson repeatedly misses the forest for the trees of race and gender.

There is a great book stashed inside this performatively "woke" book. Thompson keeps showing us glimpses of that great book, then hiding the great book away so he can repeat bland media formulas about how women and minorities are hurt most. News at 11. If this book is read in the far future, it will be seen as yet another example of the media class's obsessions in this age; instead of focusing on technology and how to build the future, Thompson focuses on media-enabled squabbles. We know that you've replaced church with the church of "social justice;" we don't need evangelizing for it in everything you do.

He claims, "Feminism and diversity are, indeed, sore points in the industry" (22). No, they are not; they are sore points in the grievance studies and media industries. Those are studies bent on complaining; tech is bent on building the future. He goes on to claim that "The racial makeup [of most tech cos] is not more diverse," then goes on to admit that Asians are prevalent in tech. Do they not count as diversity? Why does Thompson systematically exclude Asians? His own racial insensitivity shows here; performative wokeness shades back into the racism it claims to oppose. Thompson says early hackers "admired great code even if it came from someone with no rank at all" (37)—isn't that meritocracy?

Thompson asks, "What makes programming so often inhospitable for women?" He assumes it is, ignoring the vast number of successful women in the field. Why not focus harder on what makes coders, rather than the race or sex of the coders? Because that wouldn't reify Thompson's world view. We get it, Clive: you are a moral hero while the rest of us are mere struggling pygmies. Maybe one day we can be as good as you demonstrate yourself to be in this book.

129 people found this helpful

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Robert Hafernik

As a "coder" myself, I found this book annoying

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2019

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I've been a "coder" (not a preferred designation in the programming community) for 40 years and I found this book annoying. First of all, it's relentlessly negative: at least 80% of what he has to say is negative. He even makes disparaging personal remarks, referring to "coders" as "code monkeys" or "estranged from everyday life" or "aloof, introverted, acerbic" and so on. No profession is all rosy, of course, but Mr Thompson seems to take delight in criticizing his subjects with rude remarks.

My next objection is his constant focus on social justice issues, particularly the plight of female "coders". It's pretty easy to argue that women in tech have been subjected to bad treatment. I don't think it was necessary, however, to bring this up in almost every chapter -- the one chapter devoted exclusively to this problem would have sufficed in my humble opinion. It gets boring after a while and just seems to work as filler. He also bashes President Trump pretty regularly throughout the book (30 mentions of the word "Trump"), even though Trump has almost nothing to do with the matter at hand. He constantly talks about the terrible "white nationalists" on the right, but never once mentions their counterpart, the equally nutty, extreme and violent "far left" Antifa groups.

Another objection is that Mr Thompson focused almost the whole book on one type of "coder": those who work on internet-related software, mostly for giant Silicone Valley companies. There is a chapter on "blue-collar coders", but it focuses mostly on blue-collar workers learning to code... so they can go to work on internet stuff for giant companies. He makes no mention of infrastructure programmers: those tens of thousands of people who do the mundane work of keeping the wheels turning; programming the internet's infrastructure, the electrical grid, the telecommunications grid and so on. Embedded programmers, the thousands who write the code in your set-top cable box, your refrigerator, your car, your washing machine and so on get no mention at all. He ignores the automation programmers who do process control in factories and automate the HVAC and lighting systems in buildings. There is no mention of application programmers; the folks who write your PC's operating system and the word processors, spreadsheets and other applications. I think there's only one mention of a "coder" outside of the US. All of these neglected software types make up the majority, have different viewpoints from Silicone Valley types and have more to do with keeping Western Civilization going than Google.

Lastly, Mr Thompson's biggest criticism of social media is that the algorithms tend to promote the controversial, the outlandish and the divisive. You have to wonder, what is Mr Thompson's excuse? His book is laser focused on criticism of social media, large internet companies, and "young white males" who evidently are the exclusive representatives of everything that is wrong with things today. In other words, Mr Thompson does exactly what he accuses social media of doing -- but he has no algorithm, just his personal judgement.

All of this is not to say that there is nothing good about the book. I liked the chapter that included a history of encryption and the programmers who developed it. The chapter on blue-collar coders was interesting as well, even though the premise that a 12-week course will actually turn a neophyte into a marketable coder has been pretty well disproven.

If you hate Silicone Valley or it's inhabitants; if you're liberal in your politics; and if you don't write code yourself; this is a book for you.

60 people found this helpful

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The Coding Culture

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2019

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Clive Thompson’s new behind the screen look at the tribe of coders is by no means perfect. A journalist by profession, Thompson’s chapters somewhat read like a series of loosely connected articles for the New York Times magazine. But these glances at different aspects of the computer programming world do incisively capture the culture for both good and ill.

Written primarily for those who are not members of the tribe, as a data scientist I cannot say I learned much by reading it. But its depiction of the hyper-masculine, intellectually preoccupied, socially inept world of programming did resonate. Of course, Thompson is not the first writer to depict this world. Nor is he the first to opine that the immense amount of harm caused by these new technologies is the result of the blindnesses of this monoculture. But updating readers on the cultural changes in computing from the 1950s to the 1990s to 2019 is important for everyone who has to live in the partially online modern world.

Thompson also makes a concerted argument that the lack of women and minorities in computers is the result of cultural bias and not in any sense genetic. Though largely relying on anecdotal evidence the argument grows increasingly persuasive as the book advances. I wish Thompson had relied more on data and less on personal testimony. Given, however, that this is an issue with significant cultural and financial implications, it’s encouraging to see this position well-articulated.

I ended up thinking after reading it through that the book is a light and mostly pleasant way for those not in coding to understand something of this ever growing part of modernity. Not a must-read but something that non-coders will both benefit from and enjoy.

52 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

Loved it!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

I get so excited when I find a great book. I finished this book in a week: fascinating and well written. It's nonfiction but it reads almost like a novel, making it easy and fun to read. I don't plan on becoming a coder but this has helped me understand how relevant programmers are in the working world. I thoroughly enjoyed it; you won't discover the secrets of the universe or be inspired to set up a business, but it's a light and enjoyable read. Recommended!

J+1707

Promising title, boring to read, no surprising insights

Reviewed in Germany on January 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

I got interested by the idea of looking at coders and coding
and the good reviews in the public press did also indicate a good book.

The idea of interviewing coders and other IT-related people to write a book with "personal views" is very good
but the end result is

- too many boring stories in lengthy details, why person X did Y
- not enough really new insights into the global impacts (give the book is from 2020!)
- the chapters are not really related to each other, it is just a bunch of "interview" results + valuation of the situations
- IT topics do never deep dive (boring for people with IT experience, maybe OK for non-IT readers)
- for my taste to much self-decoration of the author in the style "I know the important person X"
- criticizing without showing better options (eg. meritocracy)

On the positive side there is an inspring chapter 9 ("Cucumbers, Skynet, and Rise of AI) that looks critically at many aspects of artificial intelligence.

2 people found this helpful

Jeffery S.

wasn't a "could not put it down" book.

Reviewed in Canada on August 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

parts were good. i liked how it started out with the girl who created instagram but i found, after, it lacked in interesting stories. maybe my expectations are better suited to another type of book. it does do a good history of coding i find. im technical so i especially enjoyed when the ways some algorithms worked were explained

Dwight Hoyes

Good Reading

Reviewed in Canada on May 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is an interesting book but a little too long. Could have used better editing. Worth reading none-the-less.

Murray A. Sondergard

Full of interesting insights into the minds of people who spend their days looking at computer code.

Reviewed in Canada on April 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

Great Book

2 people found this helpful

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