We, Programmers: A Chronicle of Coders from Ada to AI

Preface

I am about to tell you the story of how it all began. It’s a twisty-turny tale of the lives and challenges of some remarkable people, the remarkable times in which they lived, and the remarkable machines they mastered.

But before we dive headlong into those twisty little passages all different, a little preview is likely appropriate—just to whet your appetite.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but nothing breeds necessity like war. The impetus for our industry was created by the paroxysms of war—especially World War II.

In the 1940s, the technology of warfare had outstripped our computational resources. There was simply no way that battalions of humans operating desk calculators could keep up with the computational demands coming ...