The Soul Of A New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
List Price:
Our Price: $6.00
You Save: $8.99 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.93 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Tracy KidderEdition: Paperback
Published: 2000-06-01
ISBN: 0316491977
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of The Soul Of A New Machine
Book Review: Excellent View on an Old Topic
Summary: 4 Stars
Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine" is over 20 years old now, and for a book about the creation of a new microcomputer and the engineers that worked on it, that's a very long time. Not necessarily about technology - a computers are by and large still Von Nuemann machines, and the principles are the same - but the engineer and the computer geek have become part of the culture in a way they weren't in 1980. The book, as a result, lacks some freshness to a modern reader - the bleary-eyed devotion of the engineer is an old story by now.
It's rarely told as well as it is here, though; Kidder has a knack for prose and handles everything well. The passages on computer technology slow down a little, but are still fairly impressive considering the ground he has to cover. The engineers, their quirks and motivations and doubts are depicted well, and he captures the drive and obsession with the machine and the long drag of testing as well as anything I've read. So even if the driven engineer is old hat by now, Kidder's book is still a great tome of the curious creation of a new machine.
Summary of The Soul Of A New Machine
The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done--just look at today's news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters' ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic.These days, we are used to the "total commitment" philosophy of managing technical creation, but Kidder was surprised and even a little alarmed at the obsessions and compulsions he found. From in-house political struggles to workers being permitted to tease management to marathon 24-hour work sessions, The Soul of a New Machine explores concepts that already seem familiar, even old-hat, less than 20 years later. Kidder plainly admires his subjects; while he admits to hopeless confusion about their work, he finds their dedication heroic. The reader wonders, though, what will become of it all, now and in the future. --Rob Lightner
The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done--just look at today's news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters' ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic. These days, we are used to the "total commitment" philosophy of managing technical creation, but Kidder was surprised and even a little alarmed at the obsessions and compulsions he found. From in-house political struggles to workers being permitted to tease management to marathon 24-hour work sessions, The Soul of a New Machine explores concepts that already seem familiar, even old-hat, less than 20 years later. Kidder plainly admires his subjects; while he admits to hopeless confusion about their work, he finds their dedication heroic. The reader wonders, though, what will become of it all, now and in the future. --Rob Lightner
History Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in 10 Great Tech Books from Spectrum
The Making of the Atomic Bombby Richard Rhodes
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1995-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Timeby Dava Sobel
Walker & Company; Published: 2005-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.20
Price in other shops:
The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internetby David Kahn
Scribner; Published: 1996-12-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $39.00
Price in other shops:
The Soul Of A New Machineby Tracy Kidder
Back Bay Books; Published: 2000-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.78
Price in other shops:
The Design of Everyday Thingsby Donald A. Norman
Basic Books; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Ageby Paul Graham
O'Reilly Media, Inc.; Published: 2004-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.58
Price in other shops:
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braidby Douglas R. Hofstadter
Basic Books; Published: 1999-02-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.92
Price in other shops:
A New Kind of Scienceby Stephen Wolfram
Wolfram Media; Published: 2002-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.03
Price in other shops:
Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Meanby David Gelernter
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1993-01-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.45
Price in other shops:
The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstanceby Henry Petroski
Knopf; Published: 1992-11-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.88
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Among Schoolchildrenby Tracy Kidder
Harper Perennial; Published: 1990-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the Worldby Tracy Kidder
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2004-08-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition)by Robert B. Cialdini
Allyn & Bacon; Published: 2008-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.26
Price in other shops:
Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))O'Reilly Media, Inc.; Published: 2007-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.99
Price in other shops:
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolutionby Steven Levy, Steven Levy
Published: 2000-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.12
Price in other shops:
Houseby Tracy Kidder
Mariner Books; Published: 1999-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Daysby Jessica Livingston
Apress; Published: 2007-01-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)by Frederick P. Brooks
Addison-Wesley Professional; Published: 1995-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.44
Price in other shops:
Managing With Power: Politics and Influence in Organizationsby Jeffrey Pfeffer
Harvard Business School Press; Published: 1994-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Softwareby Scott Rosenberg
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2008-02-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.10
Price in other shops: