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Programmers At Work, 22 Years Later
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."
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.
It's also licensed under the creative commons and has not one ad. Can your site say that?
Sometimes, a bulleted list of black text on a white background is a godsend to these old eyes and more than gets the jobs done.
My work here is dung.
I've always wondered whatever happened to Bill Gates.
Damn microsoft keyboard....
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
I absolutely loathe sites that don't expand to match the width of my browser.
On a 1920x1200 screen any site that only lets me see 66 characters will earn my wrath forever.
Three years! In (Moore's) computer years that's like 18 generations, prior to the great depression of dotcoms or even the Civil (browser) War.
It's amazing that some employer is kind enough to provide this old geriatric coder a job. I try to stay out of the way of the new blood and stave off death for a few more years but my old concepts of "EJBs" and "Java Server Faces" is just embarrassing to them.
A new recruit came in the other day, I told him not to feel bad and we'd make him 1337 soon enough. He just chuckled and patted me on the head and said, "There there, old timer, we'll get you some streaming Matlock off the server while we clean up your mess."
I miss my friends that have already moved on from this life to the next, those that are managers already. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friends.
So please, when you see an ancient dinosaur like me lumbering around trying to figure out what the f*ck ruby is and why I have to put it on rails and then wonder how that was any different than what I used to be doing, please be kind. Have patience, my mind isn't as nimble as it once was. Three years of Jack Daniels and coding ravages a man and leaves him a dusty shell.
Just promise me you'll never forget me when I'm put in the basement next to a pile of boxes next month. Please come visit, please!
My work here is dung.
So while we may not be able to reconcile our differences now, I realize that at the end of the day we might find ourselves in the same spot of alienation and place of decay.
In a different reality, I might have called you friend
My work here is dung.
I was on a panel with Peter at a conference a few weeks ago. He still looks just like he did on the box covers in the 80s. Our talk was on The Future of Software and Technology or Something Like That, and of the 8 people on the panel, I found Peter's remarks to be the most eccentric and Sci Fi. He was talking about head's up displays in our eyeglasses and things of that nature.
After we all had our say, the moderator asked if anyone of us had anything to add. The mod looked at Peter, at which point Peter, who was sitting with his arms crossed looking either bored or disgusted (I couldn't tell), stated, "Yes, I have something to say. I am out of here. See ya." So he got up and left.
Most of the audience did not come from tech backgrounds, so I don't think even 10% of them had any idea who he was, or how much of a name he had in the olden days.