Scan barcode
A review by lucapette
Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages by Shane Warden, Federico Biancuzzi
2.0
Not one star because of the APL interview which is really enjoyable and because of one interesting aspect: the predictions of the language designers. The book is almost ten years old now so it's interesting to see language designers saying "X is the future of programming" (Hint: they're mostly wrong)
Here are the notes I took while reading it:
The first interviews (c++, python) are really bad. The questions aren't interesting, the answers are sexist (programmers are always "he" in this book, and the authors could use the singular they, c'mon it's time to grow up a little.). Some answers are *really* ugly: "he is/is not a real programmer". This culture must die and seeing a book fostering it is pretty upsetting.
I did like the AWK interview a bit. There are interesting cues about learning and how to use teaching for your own learning.
Not sure I can recommend a 2-star book, but I guess one may be curious about one language or the other. Surely, I'm not reading it again.
Here are the notes I took while reading it:
The first interviews (c++, python) are really bad. The questions aren't interesting, the answers are sexist (programmers are always "he" in this book, and the authors could use the singular they, c'mon it's time to grow up a little.). Some answers are *really* ugly: "he is/is not a real programmer". This culture must die and seeing a book fostering it is pretty upsetting.
I did like the AWK interview a bit. There are interesting cues about learning and how to use teaching for your own learning.
Not sure I can recommend a 2-star book, but I guess one may be curious about one language or the other. Surely, I'm not reading it again.