A sincere thanks to the computer scientists who were kind enough to be interviewed by me, in person or via e-mail: Henry Baird, Victor Basili, Fred Brooks, Robert Harper, Donald Knuth, Adam McKay, David Parnas, Vaughan Pratt, and Ben Shneiderman. I’d also like to thank Glenn Dardick and Vincent Erickson, who both responded to my impromptu Facebook messages and filled in some great historical detail.
I would also like to express my deepest thanks to everybody who reviewed the book. My most heartfelt appreciation goes to my sister, Rebecca, who read through the book with her professional editor’s eye—three times. I’m also grateful to my parents, Michael and Marcia, and my brother, Joe, who read the whole thing and gave lots of feedback, and Krishnan Ramaswami, who despite not being related to me, read and commented on every chapter. I’d also like to thank my son Zachary, who contributed valuable feedback, and Emily Papel and Carrie Olesen, who gave me early encouragement. Thanks to Bernard Pham, Kate Varni, and Joseph White as well for their comments. Bob Drews once again did an excellent job editing the final manuscript.
A big thank you to everyone at the MIT Press who worked on the book, particularly Maria Lufkin Lee, who expressed initial interest in and eventually acquired the book, and Christine Savage and Stephanie Cohen, who answered many questions, along with the anonymous referees who provided insightful comments. My appreciation also to Virginia Crossman, Cindy Milstein, and Susan Clark.
Thanks to all my colleagues in Engineering Excellence at Microsoft, especially those who worked together with me in Developer Excellence, and specifically Eric Brechner, who hired me into Engineering Excellence and was the guiding light behind much of what we did. I’ll also mention Kristen Lane, who was kind enough to explain knob-and-tube wiring to me.
Thanks to the staff members of the King County Library System for allowing me to haunt their many branches while working on the book, and the baristas at various local coffee shops for the same—especially Yum-E Yogurt in Issaquah. The Living Computer Museum in Seattle let me relive a not-so-small part of my youth, which was much appreciated.
Various anonymous people on Reddit have contributed knowledge that directly or indirectly found its way into the book. I don’t know who you are, and you didn’t know who I was, but consider yourselves acknowledged. I’m also grateful to the maintainers of whatever Wikipedia pages I used in researching the book.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Maura, for putting up with the giant pile of dusty software books, and with me, as always.