Software History

Technical knowledge alone isn't enough - increase your software development income by leveling up your soft skills Early in his software developer career, John Sonmez discovered that technical knowledge alone isn't enough to break through to the next income level - developers need "soft skills" like the ability to learn new technologies just in time, communicate clearly with management and consulting clients, negotiate a fair hourly rate, and unite teammates and coworkers in working toward a common goal.

In 1996 a custom-software shop started on a third floor in Concord, New Hampshire: one server, six web pages, no product, and a name that did not fit. The founder still had a day job in Cambridge. Winter mornings on I-93, three hours’ sleep, snow on the face. A nineteen-dollar tool crashed the last machine. He wrote his own. The White House ordered it. Then came librarians, Section 508, a free tester inside FrontPage, and a company that tried to add value without becoming a hero. This is not a playbook and not a rainbow. It is the founding—what it cost, what it built, and what was left ...

Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions-it's the code that makes computers run. A basic idea that proved elusive for hundreds of years and bent the minds of the greatest thinkers in the world, the algorithm is what made the modern world possible. Without the algorithm, there would have been no computer, no Internet, no virtual reality, no e-mail, or any other technological advance that we rely on every day.

At some point in your career, you'll realize there's more to being a software engineer than dealing with code. With more than forty stand-alone stories, Lopp walks through a complete job lifecycle, starting with the interview and ending with the realization that it might be time to move on. You'll learn how to handle baffling circumstances in your job, understand what you want from your career, and discover how to thrive in your workplace.

Before Netflix. Before Spotify. Before streaming changed everything — there was The Pirate Bay. In the early 2000s, a small group of Swedish hackers built a website that the most powerful entertainment industry in the world couldn't kill. Police raids. Criminal trials. International manhunts. Hollywood's best lawyers. None of it worked. Every time the system tried to shut them down, they came back stronger. The Pirate Who Tried to Make the Internet Free tells the full story — from the wild early days of Napster and burned CDs, to the rise of a file-sharing empire that redefined the ...

When Private Malcolm Dow went to clean up a crashed weather balloon, he came face-to-face with an alien instead. Being an alien of sorts in his own otherwise all-white regiment, Malcolm instantly took on the Alien’s plight - military help for his besieged planet, Zalma. And it’s not just Zalma; Earth will be next. But to do so, he must first overcome the obstacles he’s faced since childhood and find a voice for himself. The trouble is, he’s not the only one who knows they’re here.

Decode the invisible digital infrastructure running our daily lives in this mind-expanding technology history. Perfect for your daily commute, this thought-provoking journey transforms abstract logic into a gripping story of human ambition. Explore how ancient mechanical calculators evolved into...

Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.

Every SaaS company on earth is careening towards its next revenue plateau. It’s called a Growth Ceiling—a moment in time where growth stops, and you’re losing just as many customers as you’re bringing in. It’s not an opinion—it’s just how recurring revenue businesses work.

In the 1970s, while their contemporaries were protesting the computer as a tool of dehumanization and oppression, a motley collection of college dropouts, hippies, and electronics fanatics were engaged in something much more subversive. Obsessed with the idea of getting computer power into their own hands, they launched from their garages a hobbyist movement that grew into an industry, and ultimately a social and technological revolution.

This audiobook is a summary of the advice I’ve given to software engineers over the years–and then some more. This audiobook follows the structure of a “typical” career path for a software engineer, from starting out as a fresh-faced software developer, through being a role model senior/lead, all the way to the staff/principle/distinguished level. It summarizes what I’ve learned as a developer and how I’ve approached coaching engineers at different stages of their careers.

In Modern Software Engineering, continuous delivery pioneer David Farley helps software professionals think about their work more effectively, manage it more successfully, and genuinely improve the quality of their applications, their lives, and the lives of their colleagues.

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know...

Software is eating the world—transforming industries from finance to retail, from media to transportation. Yet healthcare remains stubbornly resistant to digital transformation. In Inedible, healthcare innovator Mariano García-Valiño diagnoses this anomaly, explaining why healthcare continues to lag behind and revealing how it can finally leap forward. Drawing from decades of experience at the intersection of healthcare and technology, García-Valiño identifies the root cause: today’s healthcare systems were built for an era dominated by acute, infectious diseases. That era has passed.

Trace the captivating history of technology from mechanical gears to the digital revolution powering our modern lives. Perfect for a thought-provoking commute or a focused learning session, this engaging narrative nonfiction journey reveals the human struggles behind the code. Discover how...

The Subscription Trap provides a compelling and detailed analysis of a fundamental shift in our relationship with technology: the transition from permanent ownership to perpetual leasing. This consumer rights and technology book explores how the "buy once, own forever" model has been systematically replaced by recurring payments, transforming us from owners into permanent tenants of our own devices. Owusu meticulously examines the "Software-as-a-Service" (SaaS) revolution, revealing how even physical hardware is now frequently locked behind digital paywalls. The narrative uncovers the ...

Humans living in a dark, flooded world without sunlight - that’s what the gods of the Incas found upon their arrival. They terraformed waterlogged Earth to make it habitable again and built golden cities along the western half of South America connected by 25,000 miles of Inca road. Inca legends match the biblical Genesis but with incredible detail that tells a much fuller story. Creation did not involve making the sun and moon, and Earth out of nothing - it reworked what was already here.

This program is read by the author. The never-more-necessary return of one of our most vital and eloquent voices on technology and culture, the author of the seminal Close to the Machine The last twenty years have brought us the rise of the internet, the development of artificial intelligence...

In Understanding Software, Max Kanat-Alexander, Technical Lead for Code Health at Google, shows you how to bring simplicity back to computer programming. Max explains to you why programmers suck, and how to suck less as a programmer. There's just too much complex stuff in the world. Complex stuff can't be used, and it breaks too easily. Complexity is stupid. Simplicity is smart. 

Master the evolution of software engineering as you explore tech history from raw machine code to AI ecosystems. Perfect for your morning commute or focused deep work, this captivating narrative tracks the brilliant pioneers who transformed human logic into the digital frameworks powering our...