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ninj's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic description of the creation of Windows NT and the people and personalities involved.
Very much invokes the Soul of a New Machine vibe.
Very much invokes the Soul of a New Machine vibe.
bonaldi's review against another edition
3.0
This cast of unpleasant, hypercompetitive, aggressive, unfeeling sociopaths working at BigCorp goes a long way to explaining why Windows NT (later XP) is the way it is.
The contrast with the idealistic soi disant "revolutionaries" at Apple (best told in Folklore) is huge.
The contrast with the idealistic soi disant "revolutionaries" at Apple (best told in Folklore) is huge.
ashwinn's review against another edition
5.0
I picked up the book Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race To Create Windows NT And The Next Generation At Microsoft in the library after listening to it being mentioned by Joel Spolsky on the StackOverflow podcast #48. I wasn't really intending to read it, but after racing through the exciting opening of the book there was no way I was going to let it go. Written by Pascal Zachary, this is a book that tells the story of the creation of Windows NT. More than the software, it's the story of the people, the teams and their efforts and achievements that made the first version of Windows NT possible. The book is a very breezy read and should be un-put-downable for any techie. Recommended reading.
mburnamfink's review
5.0
What does it take to make great software? A focus on quality boarding on obsession, brilliance, long hours, personal sacrifice, and a leaving of that intangible called leadership. Showstopper stands besides The Mythical Man Month and The Soul of a New Machine in it's depiction of programming and technology around the creation of The Last Great OS.
Lead Engineer David Cutler and his team had a ambitious job, to make the first 'platform-independent operating system', a piece of software which would revolutionize personal computing by adding reliability and backwards compatibility, and make Microsoft very very wealthy. Over 4 years, they transformed a vague idea into working software, at the cost of $150 million, many broken marriages, and constant abuse and bullying. The sense I got from this book is that Cutler was a maniac, but perhaps the only type of person who could make something like NT work. I can only hope that the massive stock options the team got compensated for the emotional trauma. The human side is paramount in this story, but able analogies explain the inner workings of the PC.
These days, post-Zune, Windows phone, and the resurgence of Apple it's easy to mock Microsoft as a has been-a dinosaur limping along on monopoly market power and tech lock-in. But it serves us to remember that they were agile and innovative once. Cutler's messianic vision may have been justified, because 20 years later his code is still at the heart of the versions of Windows that we use.
*Disclosure: Gregg Zachary is a friend and colleague.
Lead Engineer David Cutler and his team had a ambitious job, to make the first 'platform-independent operating system', a piece of software which would revolutionize personal computing by adding reliability and backwards compatibility, and make Microsoft very very wealthy. Over 4 years, they transformed a vague idea into working software, at the cost of $150 million, many broken marriages, and constant abuse and bullying. The sense I got from this book is that Cutler was a maniac, but perhaps the only type of person who could make something like NT work. I can only hope that the massive stock options the team got compensated for the emotional trauma. The human side is paramount in this story, but able analogies explain the inner workings of the PC.
These days, post-Zune, Windows phone, and the resurgence of Apple it's easy to mock Microsoft as a has been-a dinosaur limping along on monopoly market power and tech lock-in. But it serves us to remember that they were agile and innovative once. Cutler's messianic vision may have been justified, because 20 years later his code is still at the heart of the versions of Windows that we use.
*Disclosure: Gregg Zachary is a friend and colleague.
srchief's review
4.0
Excellent story on how a revolutionary operating system was developed and delivered. This tells all the hurdles and sacrifice that the team that developed Windows NT went through. David Cutler was the leader of the team that brought about the revolutionary changes that resulted from the innovation of NT. As a side note, the story includes a look back into the early 90's PC industry. It was fun to note that it was considered extraordinary that NT required 16 Megabytes of RAM. In today's terms this isn't very much but back in the 90's, with RAM prices high, it made the computer needed to run NT very expensive.
Overall, really enjoyed the walk through time and all the issues that were faced by a team of 250+ people. The way that the development was brought together and the bugs finalized. It is a really good story if you are interested in the history of the computer industry.
Overall, really enjoyed the walk through time and all the issues that were faced by a team of 250+ people. The way that the development was brought together and the bugs finalized. It is a really good story if you are interested in the history of the computer industry.
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