
Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint (2012) [pdf] - j_s
http://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/sweating-bullets/gaskins-sweating-bullets-webpdf-isbn-9780985142414.pdf
======
whyleyc
This is a great read from a guy that was on the front lines at a really
interesting time in computing history.

It is long though (500+ pages). If you want a shorter form version we
interviewed Robert on some specific aspects of his work for our blog:

\- How Microsoft beat Apple to buy PowerPoint: [https://wp.me/p20Qg-
yH](https://wp.me/p20Qg-yH)

\- What it was like to run a startup in the 1980s:
[https://wp.me/p20Qg-F2](https://wp.me/p20Qg-F2)

\- Having Bill Gates as your boss: [https://wp.me/p20Qg-
IR](https://wp.me/p20Qg-IR)

------
jerrre
Ah, wasn't expecting a 500+ page pdf. All the words in the title trigger to
think about presentations...

Actually I like the idea of full stories about the history of specific
software. (Obviously haven't read this one just now, so can't say whether it's
any good).

Does anyone know of other books (physical prints would be preferable to me) in
this genre? Masters of Doom comes to mind, but it's a bit too much about the
personal story maybe.

Edit: I see it's also available in print on Amazon

~~~
jasim
FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software by Kerry Nietz. It is about the
development of FoxPro, the late 80s massively successful xBase clone that was
acquired by Microsoft.

Programmers At Work by Susan Lammers is a series of interviews with
programmers (Charles Simonoyi, Gary Kildall, Bill Gates, Daniel Ratliff and so
on), in the 80s when Microsoft had just 160 employees, "multimedia" was a
buzzword, and Bill Gates was trying to understand how CD-ROMs would change
everything. The programmers talk about how they built their favorite software,
and there are certain philosophical nuggets about computing that is unsullied
by the complexity and sophistication that the field acquired later.

Coders At Work by Peter Seibel, written in the vein of Lammer's original work.
This time it speaks to a different set of programmers including Joe Armstrong,
Ken Thompson and other stalwarts.

------
jasode
_> stories about the history of specific software. [...] Does anyone know of
other books (physical prints would be preferable to me) in this genre?_

The AutoCAD story[1] is interesting to read. Unlike Forethought/PowerPoint,
Autodesk was never acquired and stayed independent. A popular excerpt from it
is John Walker evaluating 3 different venture capital deals.[2]

The Wordperfect story[3] is interesting. Because their headquarters was in
Utah and intertwined in Mormonism, the book mentions several management
practices that many would consider strange and oppressive (can't go to dentist
during company hours, etc). From a technical perspective, one of the takeaways
was their ill-fated decision to stick with assembly language too long instead
of using a higher level language like 'C Language'. This affected the time-to-
market for new products like the Windows version of Wordperfect. This is
eerily similar to FogCreek/FogBugz strategy to stay with their internal
proprietary "Wasabi" programming language. That affected their ability to
create new features to keep with competitor Atlassian. This doesn't mean
companies should always go from low-level to higher-level language for
productivity. Google Inc did the opposite: Larry Page wrote first Pagerank
system in Java and Python and his first employees rewrote it in lower-level
C++ for better cpu & memory utilization of their servers.

The Chandler (personal information manager) story chronicled in the book
"Dreaming in Code"[4] is very good. Even though Chandler never got well-known
like AutoCAD and Wordperfect, the book lets you see how a lot of smart people
can get sidetracked by endless architectural debates which delays the release
of usable software. (Basically, the opposite of Eric Ries' Lean Startup where
you have a Minimum Viable Product and iterate fast with real customers.) It's
also a lesson that having money (Mitch Kapor's generous funding) becomes a
handicap. You'd think that _not_ having the pressure of a limited runway and
_not_ running out of VC money would empower the developers but that didn't
happen. Instead, it just prolonged a lot of software architecture debates. In
contrast, when companies are starving and in near-death bankruptcy, it tends
to focus the mind very intensely on how to create business value. (E.g.
Airbnb's founders selling cereal boxes in order to live another day and build
the lodging platform.)

[1] [https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/)

[2]
[https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html](https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html)

[3]
[http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml](http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Code-Programmers-
Transcenden...](https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Code-Programmers-Transcendent-
Software/dp/1400082471)

------
yuhong
Which also reminds me of the problem of programs assuming that HWNDs are even,
including the first version of Project using the low bit to do windowless
controls in the days just before Windows 3.0 was released. PowerPoint decided
to require protected-mode Windows 3.0 from the beginning instead, as you can
see in the book. In retrospect, Windows 3.0 should have been delayed anyway
because of DOS 5.0.

