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I would definitely OMIT Tracy Kidder from my list of famous tech writers.
Here's why.
I worked at Data General at about the time the book was written. While I
know my opinion is in the minority, I thought the book was banal and boring.
I kept waiting for something REALLY interesting to happen, and the image of
Tom West driving a convertible down Computer Drive with his longish golden
locks blowing in the wind was a bit of journalistic license. PUH-LEEZE!
Don't get me wrong. A lot of really good, even brilliant people worked
really hard to make the Eagle "fly." It's just that Kidder's book had to be
selective and really wasn't, IMHO, what I'd call "technical writing." It's a
NOVEL, for crying out loud! It's based on a "real" story, but it's still a
work of fiction. Good novelists like Kidder, and even journalists are
necessarily selective. They must choose to describe people and events that
move the story forward and that make their point. In 1980, there was an even
greater mystique surrounding the computer industry, and Kidder exploited it.
