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Programmers At Work, 22 Years Later

Posted by kdawson on from the still-crazy-after-all-these-years dept.

Firebones writes "In 1986, the book Programmers at Work presented interviews with 19 programmers and software designers from the early days of personal computing including Charles Simonyi, Andy Hertzfeld, Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates, and Pac Man programmer Toru Iwatani. Leonard Richardson tracked down these pioneers and has compiled a nice summary of where they are now, 22 years later."

8 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like Fire in the Valley by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you like reading about the earlier days of personal computing, I'd also recommend Fire in the Valley by Freiburger and Swine which has a ton of cool anecdotes and dramatic confrontations.

  2. Moved down a spot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    The author of TFA ought to read slashdot a bit more often:

    Bill Gates. Then: founder of Microsoft, popularizer of the word "super". Now: richest guy in the world. But the richest guy in the world is now Carlos Slim.
  3. Inaccuracy - Gates is no longer richest by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bill Gates. Then: founder of Microsoft, popularizer of the word "super". Now: richest guy in the world. After a stint in the 90s as pure evil, semi-retired to focus on philanthropic work.
    Not even second-richest any more .. http://www.stockmarketsview.com/mukesh-ambani-becomes-worlds-richest-man/22/, http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/03/news/international/carlosslim.fortune/index.htm

    A billion ain't what it used to be ...

  4. Nice! by nexuspal · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have this book, by chance, because a professor left it out on a table and wrote, free books. A really good read, shows that to get to the top you need skill, dedication, and some luck. Oh, and in the case of CS, a burning desire to know how the machine operates at all levels...

    --
    I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure :-P
  5. Re:wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    still the site is getting really slow,
    so here is a mirror: http://crummy.com.nyud.net/2008/02/17/0

  6. Jef Raskin (1943-2005) by EdgeOfEpsilon · · Score: 3, Informative

    >Jef Raskin. Then: Macintosh project creator, founder of Information Appliance. His excellent web site is still up. Author of well-respected book The Humane Interface. The project he's working on in PaW, the SwyftCard, was a minor success.

    RIP Jef. On a lighter note, check out his son's work at Humanized

    Edit: Looks like he just updated it. I guess someone informed him of Raskin's departure...

  7. Re:wow by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2, Informative

    You don't *have* to maximize your browser window, you know. Letting the text flow to the window is the right solution. Text lines too long for you? Resize your window!

  8. Re:wow by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 2, Informative

    If the width of the text is at all affixed with anything other than a percentage, it is a poorly marked up site.

    That's what HTML is. It's content markup. Not 'code.'