[atrilla]

A wonderful book, indeed. It "teaches" a useful business management lesson: when two strong egos clash, the company drowns.

I also admire Carmack's way to tackle new (sometimes unknown) problems: read the literature, learn, do. And never failed following this.

I loved the parts when Romero swam across the lake to work all night with the rest of the crew, or when they invited in a stripper with pizza but Carmack wouldn't set the keyboard aside. So determined.

[ANTSANTS]

>I loved the parts when Romero swam across the lake to work all night with the rest of the crew,

That was also one of my favorite passages:

"The lake house was filled with the sense of unlimited possibilities. And the bond between Carmack and Romero was becoming stronger by the day. It was like two tennis players who, alter years of destroying their competition, finally had a chance to play equals. Romero pushed Carmack to be a better programmer. Carmack pushed Romero to be a better designer. What they shared equally was their passion.

This was most clear to Carmack one late weekend night. He was sitting in the house working at his PC as lightning flashed outside. Mitzi curled lazily on top of his monitor, her legs draping over the screen. The heat of her body was causing Carmack’s heat-sensitive display to ooze its colors. He pushed Mitzi gently from the monitor, and she scurried away with a hiss.

A rainstorm had picked up, and it was mighty. Cross Lake spilled into the backyard like the prelude to a horror movie. The lake was so high that it pushed the ski boat to the top of the boathouse. Long black water moccasins slithered toward the deck. The bridge leading to Lakeshore Drive was completely washed out. When Jay arrived after having been out for the day, there was no way to get in. It was, as he described it, “a turd floater” of a storm, bringing everything from the bottom of the lake to the surface. He turned away to wait it out.

Romero arrived with a friend later to find the bridge even worse than when Jay got there. There was simply no way he was going to get his car over the flooded expanse. And there were probably alligators and moccasins now making it their home.

Back in the house, Carmack resigned himself to working on his own that night. After all these hours, he had come to appreciate Romero’s diverse range of talents, gleaned from years of making his own Apple II games. Romero had been not only a coder but an artist, a designer, and a businessman. On top of all that, he was fun. Romero didn’t just love games; in a sense, he was a game, a walking, talking, beeping, twitching human video game who never seemed to let anything get him down. Like a game character, he could always find an extra life.

Just then the door behind Carmack swung open. Mitzi dashed under his feet. Carmack turned to see Romero standing there with his big thick glasses, soaking wet up to his chest, lightning flashing behind him, a big smile on his face. It was a real moment, a moment so impressive that Carmack actually saved it in his thin file of sentimental memories. This one he wanted for future access: the night Romero waded through a stormy river to work."