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Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

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Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#101

Post by packetslave »

freehunter wrote: post #63

As a follow-up, anyone have any books written about the Dotcom era? I was still fairly young at the time so I don’t remember a lot of it and I can’t find any books or shows that cover it. Lots of stuff from the 70s/80s/early 90s (Masters of Doom, Cuckoos Egg, Halt and Catch Fire, Pirates of Silicon Valley), and lots of stuff from modern Silicon Valley (Bad Blood, Silicon Valley, the various Steve Jobs movies/books) b…

There's "The Nudist on the Late Shift" by Po Bronson, which is an expansion on his various Wired writing from the Dotcom era. It's pretty good.

https://www.amazon.com/Nudist-Shift-Other-Silicon-Valley/dp/...

You can read the first (and best) chapter here: https://www.wired.com/1999/07/pilgrims/

Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#102

Post by homarp »

Minor49er wrote: post #29

"The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates is an interesting look into what Bill envisioned for the Internet. It came with a CD-ROM full of videos of how devices would be used in schools and workplaces (I thonk law enforcement too if I remember correctly). The videos are much better than the book. "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" was eye opening for me regarding the life of Jobs, his family life, and his business involvements.…

for the 'road ahead', I guess it's interesting to read both versions (the original edition and the 'Completely revised and up-to-date' that actually takes into account the Internet)

Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#103

Post by acd »

UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan.

UNIX is the predecessor to Linux/BSD and was created at Bell laboratories. Also C was created there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29

"Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features"."

One could say Micro services is a form that, do one thing and do it well.

Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#104

Post by homarp »

sien wrote: post #25

The Friendly Orange Glow : The Untold Story of the PLATO system and the dawn of cyberculture (2017) is a really interesting book about a system few people here would probably have heard of. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34373814-the-friendly-or... How the Internet Happened is very good. The podcast that was created while writing the book is also worth a listen. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38212134-how-t…

on the PLATO book, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784052 has interesting comments from the author. On PLATO itself, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615420

While i'm at it, the book 'Minitel, Welcome to the Internet' - https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minitel is about the history of the french Minitel (previous HN discussion on the Minitel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14681561 )

Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#109

Post by spondyl »

nkassis wrote: post #44

Haven't seen anyone mention these but I like them a lot: "Show-Stoppers: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" One of my favorite, exposes how large software project can really grind on people. Dave Cutler an interesting character and some of the connections between the NT team, DEC and Cutler hate of UNIX is fun. "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy…

I can also recommend Showstoppers. One thing I thought was interesting is that Dave Cutler swore by taking his vacations on time, every time. It's a stark contrast to the "hustle" culture you sometimes hear, given how highly regarded he is at his profession

Re: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?

#110

Post by bachmeier »

Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer

https://apple2history.org/book/

Not technically a book (I think that was the original plan) but there are significant interviews on the History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing

http://history.siam.org/oralhistories.htm

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