Steve Lohr

“Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else” (2015)

“Go To: The Story Of The Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists And Iconoclasts, The Programmers Who Created The Software Revolution” (2001)

In the 1950s, just before John Backus's team developed the Fortran language that revolutionized the first generation of programming, it took dozens of full-time programmers and operators to run and debug each of the era's room-sized computers. Today, languages like HTML are simple enough that anyone who knows it can set up a personal Web page, using a laptop that has many times the power of those early giant computers.In Go To, Steve Lohr chronicles the history of software from the early days of complex mathematical codes mastered by a few thousand to today's era of user-friendly software and over six million professional programmers worldwide. Lohr maps out the unique seductions of programming, and gives us an intimate portrait of the peculiar kind of genius that is drawn to this unique blend of art, science, and engineering.