This is not an exhaustive list, but these are a few code history books I really like. These are books that focus a bit more on technical characters, as opposed to business leaders, and they're all good reads. Some are better than others, but I really liked all of these for different reasons.
Some are more distant history, and a couple are more contemporary accounts.
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web
Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
If I had to pick, I would recommend The Innovators as the first to read from the list because it covers a lot of ground, and Isaacson is a great writer. However, I'd say these can be read in any order. I'll edit this list if I think of any I missed. Feel free to add any more goodies to the comments.
Latest comments (34)
I also like to know the history of scientific things which explains me what are the factors that lead to the emergence of a new technology. I think technological history must be taught to all graduates.
Masters of Doom was awesome
Thank you for the share. It seems that I should definitely get "Ghost in the Wires".
I really enjoyed "Master of Doom" and I can add to the list Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation (if you had one of these, the title is self explanatory) and I am currently reading American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web which is so far entertaining.
I'd like to recommend How The Web Was Born by James Gillies and Robert Cailliau.
@ben - one recommendation for you - because these are great.
Have you taken a look at What the Dormouse Said?
One of my favourites!
Looks great, adding to my list!
I like the one you suggested recently , called Deep Work ( started reading yesterday, good so far)
My favorite is still Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg, which details how Mitch Kapor (Founder of Lotus Development Corporation and first Mozilla Foundation chairman) tried to lead a team in creating revolutionary software...and how everything went wrong.
Oh cool!! I can't believe I'd never heard of this one. You rock Jason.
Dont wanna be a jerk, but here is what I read recently ;)
Stop Coding
Not too long ago i read Racing the Beam, about the development of the Atari VCS. It blows my mind, the stories of programming against such constrained hardware in ye olden times of computing
I haven't read many history books but what I found most interesting was
Code by Charles Petzold.
Petzold goes to the very beginning of how communications started, and go very low level and moves to the modern programming languages.
⚠️Be warned. It gets very Electrical Engineering heavy.
I literally had to skim through about 1/4 of the book as I couldn't understand many electric circuits.
I felt hesitant to mention this book because at some point it has nothing to do with code. But the communication part and how the author directs the flow of information is beautiful.
I love this book. In it you will find the birth of code and computing presented and explained in one of most basic terms possible. It does get a bit hairy towards the end as the system grows and new switches are introduced. Anyhow, it is an excellent book. I'm glad to have found someone mentioning it.
A few month ago, I've read "Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age" by Leslie Berlin, which I found very enjoyable.
It covers the time from the late 1960es to the mid-80es by following seven exemplary, maybe a bit lesser known, biographies. These stories also lay out quite demonstrative how the eco-system of onw industry was able to beget a new industry (i.e. semiconductors->personal computing->software) and also sheds some light on the bio-tech industry, which also has strong roots in the bay area.
For me, it was quite an eye-opener to follow Mike Markkula's story. In a nutshell: he got so wealthy from his stock options from Fairchild and Intel that he retired in his early thirties, he got bored from retirement, started consulting, initially for one day a week, a little start-up called Apple, where he subsequently became the first major investor and its third employee - he is much lesser known than the two Steves (I've never heard of the name before the book, but then again, I'm ostentatively not an Apple fanboy), but chances are Apple wouldn't have survived its early days without him.
I really enjoyed Ghost in the Wires. While his personality can really hit someone the wrong way, I found it really interesting. And what he says is true, he was pretty much the most famous computer hacker.
I was born in 1990 so when all of this was going on I was too young to remember or know anything about. Though I have asked my parents, who can't tell you one other computer hacker), and they remember the stuff on Kevin Mitnick. They remember hearing his name in the news constantly when his started and even remember reading the false accusations (though they didnt know it at the time) against him in the different articles Kevin mentions in his book.
It's only very early coding-related (ie. Enigma machines during WWII, which I know is a stretch haha), but I really enjoyed The Woman Who Smashed Codes. If you found The Imitation Game interesting, this is probably a good one to add to your reading list!
harpercollins.com/9780062430489/th...
Great recommendation!
That's great list! Thank you very much.
Adding to the list: Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. An hilarious story of how Linux was created, and of course a view inside Linus' mind.
Really worth it!