Tracy Kidder Quote
About ten other young, male undergraduates regularly attended these sessions of midnight programming. It was a whole subculture. It’s been popularized now, but it was a secret cult in my days, said Alsing. The game of programming—and it is a game—was so fascinating. We’d stay up all night and experience it. It really is like a drug, I think. A few of his fellow midnight programmers began to ignore their girlfriends and eventually lost them for the sake of playing with the machine all night. Some started sleeping days and missed all their classes, thereby ruining their grades. Alsing and a few others flunked out of school.
Tracy Kidder
About ten other young, male undergraduates regularly attended these sessions of midnight programming. It was a whole subculture. It’s been popularized now, but it was a secret cult in my days, said Alsing. The game of programming—and it is a game—was so fascinating. We’d stay up all night and experience it. It really is like a drug, I think. A few of his fellow midnight programmers began to ignore their girlfriends and eventually lost them for the sake of playing with the machine all night. Some started sleeping days and missed all their classes, thereby ruining their grades. Alsing and a few others flunked out of school.
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About Tracy Kidder
John Tracy Kidder (born November 12, 1945) is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his The Soul of a New Machine (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has received praise and awards for other works, including his biography of Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist, titled Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).
Kidder is considered a literary journalist because of the strong story line and personal voice in his writing.: 5 He has cited as his writing influences John McPhee, A. J. Liebling, and George Orwell.: 127–128 In a 1984 interview he said, "McPhee has been my model. He's the most elegant of all the journalists writing today, I think.": 7
Kidder wrote in a 1994 essay, "In fiction, believability may have nothing to do with reality or even plausibility. It has everything to do with those things in nonfiction. I think that the nonfiction writer's fundamental job is to make what is true believable."
Kidder is considered a literary journalist because of the strong story line and personal voice in his writing.: 5 He has cited as his writing influences John McPhee, A. J. Liebling, and George Orwell.: 127–128 In a 1984 interview he said, "McPhee has been my model. He's the most elegant of all the journalists writing today, I think.": 7
Kidder wrote in a 1994 essay, "In fiction, believability may have nothing to do with reality or even plausibility. It has everything to do with those things in nonfiction. I think that the nonfiction writer's fundamental job is to make what is true believable."