G. Pascal Zachary

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 show more 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. show less

A good account of Bush's career. Not quite the 'engineer of the American century' but important in steering the Manhattan Project and in influencing postwar American science policy - although arguably many western countries followed the same route.

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 story begins when G. Pascal Zachary walks into a zoo in Africa and falls head-over-heels for Chizo, a petite African woman who is caring for an orphaned chimpanzee. Little does he know what a wild ride he is in for! Chizo introduces him to an Africa that few outsiders get to see with romantic bush meat dinners on the beach, how to survive a mugging, and how to neutralize the evil sprits ensconced in his favorite African art.
The story gets even wilder when this mild mannered and gentle show more white man takes the fiery and opinionated black women to America! Chizo teaches him how to deftly handle his Jewish mother and how to drive American roads with style. Along the way she learns to trust and believe in him. This is the story of a remarkable marriage! These two people could not be more different yet through trust, love and understanding they are able to build an extraordinary life together. Though the book sometimes felt crazy and out of control I appreciated the lesson here in their willingness to accept each other as they are. show less