by G. Pascal Zachary

isbn: 0029356717
subject: Nonfiction, Computing
finished: 7/1/1999

Showstopper! tells the story of Windows NT, from conception until the first version was shipped. It follows the lives of a number of developers, although the main character is David Cutler, NT's brilliant but cantankerous architect. Showstopper! succeeds as a story about the dynamics of a group of people working on a large and difficult software project; at this level it's actually quite a bit more interesting than I thought it would be. However, it fails technically -- Zachary doesn't appear to understand operating systems very well, and uses silly analogies and comparisons to explain them. Still, it's a good read.