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Tickling The Ivory And Tweaking The Javascript
Part Artist, Part Hacker And Full-Time ProgrammerSee the article in its original context from
September 9, 1996
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Section D,Page
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From the outside, the so-called browser war appears to be an epic corporate struggle: Netscape vs. Microsoft in a classic David-and-Goliath fight, with each side vying to control computing in the Internet era.
But the foot soldiers in this high-tech battle also know it as a campaign that takes a relentless toll, measured in long hours and lost sleep. Just ask Brendan Eich, a 35-year-old computer programmer at the Netscape Communications Corporation.
In mid-August, Mr. Eich was well into a workday that began at 9 A.M. and did not end until well past 2 A.M. the following morning. It was a few days before Aug. 19, when the company released the latest version of its browser software for finding one's way around the Internet, Navigator 3.0. He pointed to a futon nearby, noting that naps are a survival tactic in his sleep-deprived profession.
For Mr. Eich and other Netscape programmers, the home stretch of product development means that their routine 60- or 70-hour workweeks escalate toward 100 hours or more, as they scramble to fix bugs -- misbehaving lines of software code.
''I try not to count the hours,'' Mr. Eich said. ''It's too depressing.''
Things have slowed a bit for him since August, but not much. As soon as one product is out the door, work on the next one begins. ''The next release is always around the corner,'' Mr. Eich said. ''Here, speed is paramount.''
Mr. Eich (pronounced IKE) labors on the grueling, lucrative frontier not only of the modern economy but also of the programmer's craft -- a blend of scientific precision and creative inspiration.
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