Coders At Work: Reflections On The Craft Of Programming (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Very good interviews with well known coders. They were all over the spectrum--from some folks who never graduated college, to Stanford professor Knuth. It was good to see how such a disparate group answered the same questions in such different ways. I liked thinking about whether I would want this or that person, who is a far better programmer than I, in my team. There were some I definitely don't want even while I respect their ability. I loved this book. It's simple -- it's the transcripts of 15 interviews done by Peter Seibel, each one preceded by a one page bio of the interviewee. I felt like I grew as a programmer through the course of reading this book. I learned a lot of computer history (recent and distant), including historial computer politics, which I enjoyed a lot. I also liked that, now and then, the interviewee would mention another one of the interviewees -- it always made me smile to see what they had to say about each other, and it gave a nice sense of continuity to an otherwise disjoint book. Most of all, I enjoyed the pearls of wisdom that cropped up throughout the stories. Seibel interviewed 15 of the all time great computer programmers (i.e. people who produced famously useful things), and they all had interesting things to say. My big takeaway from this book was, "You think it's impossible? Screw the impossible! Give it a shot anyway! This is computers, and you're only limited by your own mind. How hard could it be?"
What do You think about Coders At Work: Reflections On The Craft Of Programming (2009)?
Interesting to read about the thoughts and processes of top developers.
—Keith
