Book: Masterminds of Programming

[ewemoa]

Has anyone read Masterminds of Programming - Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages?

Masterminds of Programming features exclusive interviews with the creators of several historic and highly influential programming languages. In this unique collection, you'll learn about the processes that led to specific design decisions, including the goals they had in mind, the trade-offs they had to make, and how their experiences have left an impact on programming today.

Languages touched on apparently include:

• APL
• AWK
• BASIC
• C#
• C++
• Eiffel
• FORTH
• Haskell
• Java
• Lua
• ML
• Objective-C
• Perl
• PostScript
• Python
• SQL
• UML

[phitsc]

I have.

[mouser]

I have but i forgot it all.. I note that i didn't make too many notes while reading it, which is usually a bad sign, but could also mean i wasn't quite ready to absorb it..

Might be time to take another pass at it..

[phitsc]

I can remember the stark contrast between Bjarne Stroustrup (C++) and Brad Cox and Tom Love (Objective-C): the former humble, self-critical, explaining the other two bragging, jealous, unsympathetic.

Thomas E. Kurtz (BASIC) I also read with much interest. BASIC was my first programming language (which I learned from a BASIC command reference, from A to Z, on an MSX and MSX-II computer). What I can remember about it is that the interview really showed how old he is (already was at the time of the interview). He understood none of the questions about more recent development in computer programming.

About the Charles H. Moore (FORTH) interview I remember how weird the guy must be.

But I also found the other interviews entertaining, instructive and worthwhile.

[ewemoa]

Thanks for sharing