They had 64 kilobytes. They built the world.
The Human Side of Genius: Landmark interviews that captured the making of the PC Revolution. Now more relevant than ever in the age of edge AI and constrained hardware.
In 1985, I sat down with nineteen of the most influential software architects of the era and they talked about what it takes to build and launch great software.
Charles Simonyi, Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Gates, Butler Lampson, Dan Bricklin, Toru Iwatani, Jaron Lanier, Michael Hawley, Ray Ozzie, John Warnock, Robert Carr, Bob Frankston, Gary Kildall,
John Page, Scott Kim, Jef Raskin, C. Wayne Ratliff, Peter Roizen, Jonathan Sachs
The in-depth conversations were candid, technical, and alive as they reveal in their own words the ups and downs of developing software products and becoming entrepreneurs and describe how they approached solving technical problems no one had ever encountered before.
Upon its 40th Anniversary, Programmers at Work is back — and the issues and constraints they were wrestling with as early developers navigating a fresh landscape in computing resonate more than ever. Today the role of software developers who orchestrate AI coding agents and design for memory-constrained environments in IoT, robotics, and edge computing is demanding new holistic approaches and an entrepreneurial spirit. For inspiration and guidance from those who have gone before, I invite you to read the excerpts and program samples from each programmer here to get a glimpse inside this book. It’s both a collection of great stories and a masterclass in what it takes to design software. Learn from the best.
Please pre-order your copy today. Keep coming back. There will be more conversations from programmers working today to come.
~Susan Lammers