We, Programmers

"I, like Uncle Bob, spent much of my career consulting, teaching, and going to computer conferences. The importance of this is that I got to meet and dine with many of the characters in this book. So this book is about my professional friends, and I can tell you that it is a faithful story. In fact, it is incredibly well-written and researched. That is how it really was." --From the Afterword by Tom Gilb "I can't think of any other book that provides such a sweeping overview of the early history of programming." --Mark Seeman "We, Programmers is a fascinating romp through the history of computers and programming. Wonderful glimpses into the lives of some of the greats. And an enjoyable ride with Uncle Bob's career as a programmer." --Jon Kern, co-author of the Agile Manifesto "In We, Programmers, Bob successfully weaves together a highly entertaining history of programmers, giving us a wealth of historical context, humanizing stories, and eye-opening revelations about the foundational folks in our industry, all bolstered with just the right amount of low-level detail. Bob, being a small piece of this rich history, finds a way to pepper the history with his own relevant observations and critiques. We also get Bob's full story this time out, as well as his own thoughts about what's coming next. A fun, quick read." --Jeff Langr

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a programmer and software development expert since 1970. He is founder of Uncle Bob Consulting, LLC, and cofounder with his son Micah Martin of The Clean Coders LLC. Martin has published dozens of articles in various trade journals and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows. He is the author of many books, including Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices; UML for Java Programmers; Clean Code; The Clean Coder; Clean Architecture; Clean Agile; Clean Craftsmanship; and Functional Design. Martin served for three years as editor-in-chief of the C++ Report and as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.

Foreword xv Preface xix Timeline xxiii About This Book xxvii Acknowledgments xxix About the Author xxxi Part I: Setting the Stage 1 Chapter 1: Who Are We? 3 Why Are We Here? 6 Part II: The Giants 11 Chapter 2: Babbage: The First Computer Engineer 13 The Man 13 Tables 15 Babbage's Vision 23 The Difference Engine 24 Mechanical Notation 26 Party Tricks 27 The Engine's Demise 28 The Analytical Engine 30 Ada: The Countess of Lovelace 34 The First Programmer? 39 A Mixed End 40 Conclusion 42 Chapter 3: Hilbert, Turing, and Von Neumann: The First Computer Architects 45 David Hilbert 46 John von Neumann 53 Alan Turing 57 The Turing-Von Neumann Architecture 60 Chapter 4: Grace Hopper: The First Software Engineer 77 War, and the Summer of 1944 78 Discipline: 1944-1945 83 Subroutines: 1944-1946 89 The Symposium: 1947 90 The UNIVAC: 1949-1951 93 Sorting, and the Beginning of Compilers 99 Alcohol: Circa 1949 100 Compilers: 1951-1952 101 The Type A Compilers 103 Languages: 1953-1956 105 COBOL: 1955-1960 108 My COBOL Rant 112 An Unmitigated Success 113 Chapter 5: John Backus: The First High-Level Language 115 John Backus, the Man 115 Colored Lights That Hypnotize 117 Speedcoding and the 701 120 The Need for Speed 124 ALGOL and Everything Else 131 Chapter 6: Edsger Dijkstra: The First Computer Scientist 135 The Man 135 The ARRA: 1952-1955 138 The ARMAC: 1955-1958 143 ALGOL and the X1: 1958-1962 145 The Gathering Gloom: 1962 150 The Rise of Science: 1963-1967 152 Mathematics: 1968 156 Structured Programming: 1968 160 Chapter 7: Nygaard and Dahl: The First OOPL 165 Kristen Nygaard 165 Ole-Johan Dahl 167 SIMULA and OO 168 Chapter 8: John Kemeny: The First "Everyman's" Language--BASIC 185 The Man, John Kemeny 185 The Man, Thomas Kurtz 188 The Revolutionary Idea 188 Impossible 190 BASIC 192 Time-sharing 193 Computer Kids 194 Escape 195 The Blind Prophet 195 Through a Glass Darkly 201 References 202 Chapter 9: Judith Allen 203 The ECP-18 204 Judy 205 A Stellar Career 209 Chapter 10: Thompson, Ritchie, and Kernighan 211 Ken Thompson 211 Dennis Ritchie 214 Brian Kernighan 219 Unix 226 PDP-11 230 C 232 K&R 236 Conclusion 239 Part III: The Knee of the Curve 243 Chapter 11: The Sixties 245 ECP-18 249 What Fathers Do 252 Chapter 12: The Seventies 253 1969 253 1970 258 1973 261 1974 266 1976 271 1978 275 1979 277 Chapter 13: The Eighties 281 1980 281 1981 285 1982 289 1983 291 1984-1986: VRS 293 1986 295 1987-1988: The UK 298 Chapter 14: The Nineties 301 1989-1992: Clear Communications 301 1992: The C++ Report 304 1993: Rational Inc. 304 1994: ETS 306 1995-1996: First Book, Conferences, Classes, and Object Mentor Inc. 310 1997-1999: The C++ Report, UML, and Dotcom 312 1999-2000: eXtreme Programming 313 Chapter 15: The Millennium 317 2000: XP Leadership 317 2001: Agile and the Crash(es) 318 2002-2008: Wandering in the Wilderness 320 2009: SICP and Chroma-key 321 2010-2023: Videos, Craftsmanship, and Professionalism 324 2023: The Plateau 326 Part IV: The Future 329 Chapter 16: Languages 331 Types 333 Lisp 335 Chapter 17: AI 337 The Human Brain 337 Neural Nets 340 Building Neural Nets Is Not Programming 342 Large Language Models 343 The DISRUPTION of Large X Models 351 Chapter 18: Hardware 355 Moore's Law 356 Quantum Computers 358 Chapter 19: The World Wide Web 361 Chapter 20: Programming 367 The Aviation Analogy 368 Principles 368 Methods 369 Disciplines 369 Ethics 370 Afterword 371 Reflections on the Content 371 Personal Anecdotes or Stories 372 Reflections on the Content 380 Afterword Author's Perspective 381 Discussion of Future Trends 381 Calls to Action, or Closing Thoughts 384 Glossary of Terms 385 Cast of Supporting Characters 411 Index 435