I read this as a kid, and found it both exciting in some ways, and miserable in others, which was formative. At age 21 (and accomplished, since I'd started working in my teens), I mentioned the book to my girlfriend, who was getting into software. As a serious English major, she immediately went and closely read the whole thing. I stupidly hadn't realized that of course she was going to that. And I'd neglected to mention that parts of it are a frustrating slog, as the reader suffers along with the characters/subjects. As a reader with empathy, she came out of the book fatigued and…
My dad was Tom West from Soul of a New Machine. Tracy Kidder lived at our house on weekends in the late 1970s while he was working on this book. He and my dad remained friends for the rest of his life, going out on boats, drinking a lot, talking about big ideas. Tom and Tracy and (Richard) Todd were the guys, when I was a girl. I wasn't as in touch with Tracy but I'd see him at events sometimes, I had a Tracy Kidder website up before he had his own website. He came to my father's memorial service in 2011, talked about the doors that book had opened up, how his life was changed by being able…
_The Soul of a New Machine_ was one of the first (among many!) tech history books I read as a precocious teen, when I hadn't even seen a VAX (or a miniframe), let alone programmed one. But the book brought alive the machine right in front of my eyes. This was years ago, when the only thing I programmed was a piddly DOS system with BASIC. His one quote [1] remained in my imagination, and inspired me to learn management. Context: Tom West and his team have acquired a VAX system from DEC, and are reverse-engineering it to see how it is setup. "...Looking into the VAX, [Tom] West felt he saw…
The most authoritative work is Ceruzzi's A History of Modern Computing (http://amzn.to/1TiHgqd). Because it's written by an academic, not a journalist, it also has a great bibliography and footnotes. Some of the works it cites that are very valuable in themselves, depending on your area of interest, are: - R. Hodeson, Crystal Fire (on the invention of the transistor), http://amzn.to/1RictfF - T.R. Reid, The Chip (on the IC), http://amzn.to/1Hdbu8w - E.W. Pugh, IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems, (on the evolution of computer architecture), http://amzn.to/1NKZcWQ Also, as others have…
Some that I liked: - Hackers : http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Anniversar... - The Soul of a New Machine: http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-A-New-Machine/dp/0316491977 - Show Stopper! : http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr... - Dealers of Lightning: http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/... - Where Wizards Stay Up Late: http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/06848326...
I was interviewing for a job recently, and I got asked what got me into coding. It’s not the first time I got asked that same question, and it’s one of my favorites. I love to see the person’s reaction who asks me the question when I tell them the answer. For me there wasn't one single "thing" that got me interested in coding, but there's no doubt that the book The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder played a key role. It’s the movie Hackers from 1995! I’m not joking. That’s the movie that made me fall in love with computers, coding, and hacking. Many people consider it cheesy, but I…
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, the classic book following the development of a new minicomputer in the late 70s. http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/03164... Stealing The Network: How to Own the Box. This is a collection of fictional accounts of "hacking" written by hackers. Real world techniques are described though its in lightweight detail, the aim of the book is more to give an insight into how an attacker thinks. It's quite an enjoyable read too. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stealing-Network-How-Own-Cyber-Ficti... Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the…
It's maybe a bit of a cliche, and perhaps a bit dated now, but you could probably do worse than The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder.[1] Another option I like, although it might be too much material / too dense, would be Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.[2] And given that security will probably never not be an important sub-topic to anybody working in the technology field, some fun and interesting books to consider could include: - Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier by Katie Hafner and John Markoff[3] - The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through…
Be warned I'm mostly going for the "other interesting stuff" copout here: ○ The Soul of a New Machine (Tracy Kidder) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine ○ The Cuckoo's Egg (Clifford Stoll) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book) ○ Angry White Pyjamas (Robert Twigger) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_White_Pyjamas ○ Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (Keith Johnstone) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impro:_Improvisation_and_the_T... ○ What If? (Randall Munroe) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_If%3F_(book) ○ The Inventions of Daedalus…
Top of my head, here are some books on specific histories I enjoyed. All old, but there are timeless nuggets in them. Soul of a new machine, previously mentioned. Where I first learned about mushroom management. Just for Fun: the story of an accidental revolutionary [0] was fun bio on Torvalds from 2001 The Mythical Man Month [1] offers some insight into the management and thinking that went into OS/360 Masters of Doom [2]: offers an enjoyable history of the shareware years and the rise of id software The multicians site [3]: is a collaborative history of Multics, one the most…