I Sing the Body Electronic: 8a Year with Microsoft on the Multimedia Frontier

by Fred Moody

Book Overview

An outsider is allowed into the labyrinth to watch a Microsoft multimedia project from conception to partial completion. If you are interested in understanding Microsoft's strengths--and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670848751
• ISBN13: 9780670848751
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

SOftware Development and People

THe best book! Makes you feel comfortable if you are new working in a software development job. And how software development basically involves dealing with different kinds of people. ANd all the extremes in personality of the programmer. It also describes the rare and challenging lifestyle that the programmer pursues and chooses...

Could there be order in chaos?

"I Sing the Body Electronic" is a success story. Fred Moody entertainingly describes the lifecycle of a product created by Microsoft. The mystifying part is how the success described in the story came to be. Moody vividly explains the socio-political inner workings of Microsoft by tailing a development team from the start of a product until its eventual completion. The team members come to life on the page, and the observations made by Moody add an intellectual quality to what would otherwise be a soap opera. The book is gripping until the very end. The dialogue and writing are easily read, and well chosen. The chronological layout of the book, while necessary, is unfettering. All together the book is well written. Fred Moody ends the book with a provocative suggestion as to how a doomed project became a success. I wont spoil it by telling you what it is, but trust me its insightful. I can't help but believe that Bill Gates traded in his families only possessions for some magic beans. Well it has certainly paid off for him, and Mr. Moody as well.

The reality of software development

So many of the books about software development I have read are about an organized, heroic march from conception to delivery. This book is a much more realistic depiction of the chaos and mess that most people actually live with in real world software development. Moody did a good job of just telling the story and not judging the messiness or trying to clean it up to create the typical late night, pizza boxes and Jolt Cola heroic story. He does a good job of discussing the complex human issues surrounding the project and their importance relative to the actually technical issues. Creating the technology turns out to be relatively simple compared to the challenge of getting a group of people from very diverse backgrounds to function effectively as a team. This challenge is particularly strong in consumer technology products because the range of backgrounds required is so broad. The communications and collaboration skills needed to allow artist and programmers to work together are insightfully revealed in this book

A fun read for anyone intrigued by computers.

On one level this is a fascinating and often surprising inside look at the world's leading software producer. On another, broader level it is an equally fascinating account of a talented group of artists, editors, producers and programmers who set out in late 1992 on a mission to create a standard-setting, financially-successful new product (a multimedia encyclopedia for young children) in a newly emerging and as-yet-unproven field (multimedia computing) of an industry characterized by intense competition and constant change. The author does a great job of conveying the personalities, goals and emotions of the varied team members, and the often frustrating, sometimes hilarious interplay between artistic and technical mind sets, between vision and implementation.

Best book about computer biz since "Soul of a New Machine"

This fine book slipped very quietly into print in Oct. 1995, but don't let that keep you from reading it. Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine" began the story; now Moody brings it into the 1990s with an intriguing blend of wide-eyed innocence and crafty observation. It's the non-fiction version of "Microserfs" -- and every bit as funny and fascinating.