Coders at Work
I finally got around to finishing Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming. I bought it a while ago but due to certain career upheavals of late, reading it kind of got backburnered. Actually, the way the book is structured makes it really easy to do that. Each chapter profiles a famous programmer who has made a great contribution to the field. It’s actually a pretty wide-ranging field from Brad Fitzpatrick (guy who made livejournal) to Ken Thompson (Unix) and Donal Knuth (if you don’t know, stop reading this post now).
This book actually flows similar to Founders at Work, which I read last year. It actually has the same publisher and seems to be the start of a series of sorts. Although, I did find Founders at Work a little more interesting since it had a more general scope of startup business rather than just the craft of programming. Founders at Work also had some more recognizable subjects being profiled. Although semi-obscure programmers may be of some benefit, there was talk of a job interview question for techies of being able to show a candidate the list of 15 people interviewed and ask them what the contributions of each person were. Before reading, I’d only be able to recognize 4 of the names and their significance.
The only real person who I thought should have been interviewed but what not was John Carmack. The guy behind games as Wolfenstein and Doom. Though, I remember a bit from the author saying he tried to get in contact but couldn’t make it happen.
There is only one woman on the list of 15 interviewees, but I think that’s more of a reflection of programming in general rather any bias on the part of the author. THAT discussion is bigger than any one book, so one can easily give the author a pass on the subject.
The most interesting question the author asks all the interviewees has to be the whole “is programming a craft, science, or engineering discipline”. I’ve always struggled with that myself. When I was a grad student, I didn’t mind calling myself a “computer scientist”, but now it’s a little more vague. I really don’t so research anymore and that seems to be necessary to have “scientist” in one’s title. In Canada, the word “Engineer” is a little more restricted. Although I find it funny when people who have engineering degrees who don’t have a P.Eng, call themselves “Engineers” but then get uppity when someone like me uses the term “software engineer”, because technically they aren’t suppose to have the ‘E’ word in their title either. In the US it’s a little more loose. At Google I had the “E” word in my title. In the end, I don’t really care that much about title or categorization. “Software Developer” is fine. A geek by any other name and all…