Comments on: Programmers At Work Revisited

By: del.icio.us bookmarks for February 29th, 2008 through March 4th, 2008 < Subject Code

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:33:26 +0000

[...] Programmers At Work Revisited « Programmers At Work – The original 1986 intereviews and more. [...]

By: Michael Yam

Michael Yam — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:21:36 +0000

PAW continues to be one of my favorite books. Thanks for putting up this website. I’m sure more than a few of us hope this will lead to PAW II, and I have a suggestion on candidate interviewees: look back at the programmers in PAW I and find a connection.

For example, Dan Bricklin of PAW I is currently working on software for the OLPC. Then how about interviewing Ivan Krstic, “Chief TroubleMaker at OLPC” for PAW II? More about him on Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4285568518538296189

Then there’s Andy Hertzfeld and Jef Raskin of Macintosh renown in PAW I. Well, Jonathan Ive would be interesting as he is the principal designer of the iMac, iPod, and iPhone.

This approach pays homage to the past and looks toward the present and future. It also helps you whittle down a growing list of talented progammers.

Later,

Mike Y.

By: Sandy Klausner

Sandy Klausner — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:51:12 +0000

Susan, there is still hope for the software industry, please check out our website for details and contact me for more details.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:55:59 +0000

Brilliant !
I just wanted to thank-you. I sincerely believe that PAW was the most single important influence in my choice of further education and profession. Over the last twenty years or so I have enjoyed my profession in IT (almost) every day. A the time I dabbled with my Sinclair computers – this book opened my eyes to serious computing and just like Ron I reread a parts of it every year for inspiration.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:25:30 +0000

Hi. I loved your book and I re-read parts of it every year as it inspires me so much. I’ve been hoping for a new version for years now and it is good to see my dream might be coming true. As for candidates, it is hard these days as software is more complicated and solo programmers do not often stand out. However I can think of people like James Gosling, Anders Hejlsberg, Rod Johnson etc. Perhaps even a team interview for outstanding products?

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:35:49 +0000

This is great, I look forward to reading more--follow-ups with the original cast and interviews with the new. I believe works such as PAW can influence folks to pursue technical careers, and what made PAW unique among books is the access you had to the original artifacts of the design, coding and creative process. As I mentioned here, the simple and humble wonder that most of these interview subjects expressed seems so different compared to a lot of the post-dotcom face of technology. While the humble scientists and technologists are still there, they tend to be even deeper behind the scenes than they were in the early days of personal computing.