Showstopper the Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft

There are plenty of dry details about the entire prehistory and history of the development of the first release of the WindowsNT operating system. The handling of those details alone would have me rate it five stars. It really got into the development issues of each part of the OS, the hows and whys, and the timeline. It did much ,ore than that though. It fleshed out many major and minor team members’ back stories and personal experiences through the development cycle. It gave some sense of the usual emotions and boiler room environment around early releases, missed deadlines, pivots on approaches late in the game, and the inevitable burn out and post release feelings. It really put me in the developers mindset and flashed me back to those days of computing. If you have an interest in retro computing it is a must read.

I picked up the book Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race To Create Windows NT And The Next Generation At Microsoft in the library after listening to it being mentioned by Joel Spolsky on the StackOverflow podcast #48. I wasn't really intending to read it, but after racing through the exciting opening of the book there was no way I was going to let it go. Written by Pascal Zachary, this is a book that tells the story of the creation of Windows NT. More than the software, it's the story of the people, the teams and their efforts and achievements that made the first version of Windows NT possible. The book is a very breezy read and should be un-put-downable for any techie. Recommended reading.