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A review by vemana
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
4.0
I heard great things about this book before I picked it up. I started reading it and began to really like the way the characters were constructed, setting and the work people did was explained. I thought it was fictional. A wiki search 50 pages in told me I was very wrong. This book won Tracy Kidder the Pulitzer for creative non fiction. And it is amazing.
Kidder does a great job of explaining how the schematics and the innards of computers work. Set in '78-'79, this book captures the tale of how a team in Data General, the Eclipse group worked and created a new machine from the ground up and what they did on the way there. Kidder does a brilliant job of creating strong characters out regular software engineers and helps us examine their quest for getting a "name on the machine" and their unquestioned devotion to the work they 'signed up' for. Soul of a New Machine is a great examination of the modern techno startup culture and the machinations of the post industrial workforce. It is also a rumination over management techniques and working for "passion and not money".
25 years down the line, I feel it still captures the life in the world of computer engineers and the silicon valley culture. Though some companies have seemingly moved on from mushroom management techniques, it seems like even the biggest and chic ones practice participatory variations of it. And this behavior has spread. Is this way the world no operates. Is this a neo liberal turn in the workplace behavior and expectations?
Kidder does a great job of explaining how the schematics and the innards of computers work. Set in '78-'79, this book captures the tale of how a team in Data General, the Eclipse group worked and created a new machine from the ground up and what they did on the way there. Kidder does a brilliant job of creating strong characters out regular software engineers and helps us examine their quest for getting a "name on the machine" and their unquestioned devotion to the work they 'signed up' for. Soul of a New Machine is a great examination of the modern techno startup culture and the machinations of the post industrial workforce. It is also a rumination over management techniques and working for "passion and not money".
25 years down the line, I feel it still captures the life in the world of computer engineers and the silicon valley culture. Though some companies have seemingly moved on from mushroom management techniques, it seems like even the biggest and chic ones practice participatory variations of it. And this behavior has spread. Is this way the world no operates. Is this a neo liberal turn in the workplace behavior and expectations?