Revolution in The Valley by Andy Hertzfeld

Summary: Very esoteric one

This book is not for everyone. Definitely. Why? Because it is very esoteric. Andy and his colleagues describe what was happening behind the scene when Macintosh has been built. It is really deductive to read this kind of stories, however, sometimes you might end up with the feeling that you weren’t taught much. This is the case here. I admit, some stories are really interesting, but they are simply the memories. Some of them are so esoteric and focus on matters so much context dependent that you won’t be able to feel exactly the same way authors did.

However, there is one very important point worth mentioning here. Every idea, everything that is innovative has an army of people behind it. It is not as simple as saying “I made it.”. There are always people who are left behind by the management, who are sitting in the second row while in fact they are real creators of the “thing”.

I must admit that some chapters really caught me – especially one, titled “Too Big for My Britches”. At some point, it shows the role of the tension between managers and developers within the team. You will find it everywhere, in every company. When managers starts to take over, regular developers are left behind, they start to disappear in a cog machine.

In my opinion, this book is only for Mac lovers who would like to take a look at the backstage of Macintosh development.

Product page:

O’Reilly: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007195.do
Amazon (in Books): Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made
Amazon (Kindle): Revolution in The Valley [Paperback]: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made