HN Books @HNBooksMonth

I think Susan Lammers did the original in the tech/computer field, "Programmers at Work." (Not sure if Lammers based it on something else that was also titled similarly):

https://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-...

"Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry" by Susan Lammers.

https://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-...

This book is from 1989, but it's a timeless and fascinating look at the minds of Bill Gates, Andy Hertzfeld (apple/mac), Dan Bricklin (visicalc), and 16 others.

There's an 80s book with fantastic interviews of programmers before they became business leaders, check out the reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-I... & http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-at-Work-Susan-Lammers/dp/0...

Some (all?) interviews free here: http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/

⬐ greenyoda

There's also a more recent book of interviews with well-known programmers called Coders at Work:

http://codersatwork.com

⬐ ahmadajmi

+1 a very good book.

Gates was an extremely talented programmer. There's a great chapter on him in "Programmers at Work" - http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-I...

Joel Spolsky also mentions his talents in some of his old posts as well.

⬐ arethuza

The BillG Review article:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

"...a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f*-count, the better."

⬐ sayemm

Thanks, that's exactly the post I was thinking of.

In the same vein as Coders at Work is Programmers at Work by Susan Lammers: http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-I...

The book is now out of print, but the author has a blog on which she is gradually posting all the old interviews and also provides a place to discuss the interviews: http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/