Ullman gets it. There are tons of great writers who do a decent job, but most don't really have the feel for what it means to be a software engineer and are seduced by easy narratives or lurid details. Many engieneers would prefer stick to the purely technical, and when they do deign to write in a more narrative fashon, you get warm glowing nostalga or breathless pride. Ullman is a writer and an engineer but she falls into nither trap. She gets what it means to be an engineer but also what it means to live in the society that she has had a hand in changing. We get to see the forest and the trees, both in crisp relief. If there is one book every software engineer should read, this is it. More important than Pragmatic Programmer or Clean Code, more telling than Hackers.