The interviews are thought-provoking, particularly the ones with Peter Norvig and Joe Armstrong. Seibel expands on some recurring themes on his blog (http://gigamonkeys.wordpress.com/category/books/coders-at-wo...). My wife also liked _Coders at Work_, though she has a lot of experience doing interviews for documentaries, and there were a couple times she was frustrated about comments Seibel should have pursued further.
_Masterminds of Programming_ wasn't very good, though I enjoyed the Chuck Moore interview.
I wish Arthur Whitney had been in _Coders at Work_.
I wish Arthur Whitney had been in _Coders at Work_.
I nominated him but he fell through the cracks. I think the book is weaker for it.
There's a wonderful story (which you probably know but it's worth repeating) that Roger Hui, the J guy, was asked who the best programmer was. He responded by saying that Peggy Lee was once asked who the best jazz singer was and she responded, "You mean besides Ella?" (By analogy, Roger's answer was "You mean besides Arthur?")
I finished reading this today, really enjoyable book, very insightful and often thought provoking - it's nice to hear topics from people who have differing perspectives.
Not sure what you mean by hardcore hacker though, unless you mean....most of the programmers in the book come from an era where assembly code and primitive machines were the only tools they had?
As books about programming go, it's pretty accessible to non-programmers. There's plenty of content about motivation, rewards, the relation between technology and culture, etc. It isn't just an avalanche of technical minutiae.
I found the part about L. Peter Deutsch (mostly) giving up programming for music particularly interesting.
[Edit: I've actually posted a short review of it after I finished reading it - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/01/09/book-review-coders-a...]