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Anything by Bill Bryson, but especially “At Home” and “One Summer: America, 1927”. Both are brilliant. “John Adams” by David McCullough. Possibly the best hi

Anything by Bill Bryson, but especially “At Home” and “One Summer: America, 1927”. Both are brilliant. “John Adams” by David McCullough. Possibly the best historical bio ever. “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes. The best recounting of the founding of Los Alamos. “Hackers” by Steven Levy. The best book on the birth of creatine coding. “The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. The best tale of hardware design I know. “Masters of Doom” by David Kushner. The best book on the early days of gaming, esp. about Carmack and Romero. Anything by Eric Raymond, esp. “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”.

wunderlust 4y ago
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Bill Bryson’s work is “technical writing” as commonly understood. Still worth reading, however, I’m sure.
tptacek 4y ago
Raymond's "Cathedral" post is a contender for one of the most overrated pieces of technical writing. "The parts that are interesting are not new, and the parts that are new aren't good". It's justifiably infamous for the now-discredited "Linus's law", about "many eyes making all bugs shallow", but large parts of it are also shoplifted from Brooks and Pike. I think it's remembered fondly mostly because it was an effective bit of advocacy written during a time period people view fondly.
- statictype 4y ago
  I feel like security bugs are in a class of their own and need different ways of thinking about them. If you leave aside security bugs, is Linus’ law still invalid? Any reference to any material on this?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    It's still not true if you leave security bugs out. It's basically never true except for a thin class of superficial bugs --- the bugs you'd intuitively expect to get diagnosed get diagnosed, but nothing else does.
  - pvg 4y ago
    https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about... But more importantly, it says 'all bugs' not 'all bugs except for these other bugs which would make the whole thing untrue'
raddan 4y ago
Tracy Kidder is a wonderful writer. If you liked “The Soul of a New Machine” you might also like “House” which is on a totally different subject. Is it technical? Sort of. I think about it every time I work on my own house. It’s my favorite Kidder book, and I LOVED “The Soul of a New Machine.”

wunderlust 4y ago

I could be wrong, but I don’t think Bill Bryson’s work is “technical writing” as commonly understood. Still worth reading, however, I’m sure.

tptacek 4y ago

Raymond's "Cathedral" post is a contender for one of the most overrated pieces of technical writing. "The parts that are interesting are not new, and the parts that are new aren't good". It's justifiably infamous for the now-discredited "Linus's law", about "many eyes making all bugs shallow", but large parts of it are also shoplifted from Brooks and Pike. I think it's remembered fondly mostly because it was an effective bit of advocacy written during a time period people view fondly.

statictype 4y ago
I feel like security bugs are in a class of their own and need different ways of thinking about them. If you leave aside security bugs, is Linus’ law still invalid? Any reference to any material on this?
- tptacek 4y ago
  It's still not true if you leave security bugs out. It's basically never true except for a thin class of superficial bugs --- the bugs you'd intuitively expect to get diagnosed get diagnosed, but nothing else does.
- pvg 4y ago
  https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about... But more importantly, it says 'all bugs' not 'all bugs except for these other bugs which would make the whole thing untrue'

raddan 4y ago

Tracy Kidder is a wonderful writer. If you liked “The Soul of a New Machine” you might also like “House” which is on a totally different subject. Is it technical? Sort of. I think about it every time I work on my own house. It’s my favorite Kidder book, and I LOVED “The Soul of a New Machine.”