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<em>Coders</em> is a sign of its times: instead of comprehensively covering the topic of code, how it works, and where it comes from, Thompson does some of that, which is to be commended, and a lot of fomenting discord through relentless stereotypes about race and sex. He seems to believe women and some people, based on the color of their skin, cannot code as some other groups can, and that implication is disconcerting, pervasive, and annoying in his book. But Thompson cannot help himself; he is a creature of the media and he doesn't realize the bogosity of the water in which he swims. Instead of focusing on the product and how it is made, he focuses on the race and gender of the people making it. Software can be written by anyone; that is a topic to be celebrated. Thompson repeatedly misses the forest for the trees of race and gender. There is a great book stashed inside this performatively "woke" book. Thompson keeps showing us glimpses of that great book, then hiding the great book away so he can repeat bland media formulas about how women and minorities are hurt most. News at 11. If this book is read in the far future, it will be seen as yet another example of the media class's obsessions in this age; instead of focusing on technology and how to build the future, Thompson focuses on media-enabled squabbles. We know that you've replaced church with the church of "social justice;" we don't need evangelizing for it in everything you do. He claims, "Feminism and diversity are, indeed, sore points in the industry" (22). No, they are not; they are sore points in the grievance studies and media industries. Those are studies bent on complaining; tech is bent on building the future. He goes on to claim that "The racial makeup [of most tech cos] is not more diverse," then goes on to admit that Asians are prevalent in tech. Do they not count as diversity? Why does Thompson systematically exclude Asians? His own racial insensitivity shows here; performative wokeness shades back into the racism it claims to oppose. Thompson says early hackers "admired great code even if it came from someone with no rank at all" (37)—isn't that meritocracy? Thompson asks, "What makes programming so often inhospitable for women?" He assumes it is, ignoring the vast number of successful women in the field. Why not focus harder on what makes coders, rather than the race or sex of the coders? Because that wouldn't reify Thompson's world view. We get it, Clive: you are a moral hero while the rest of us are mere struggling pygmies. Maybe one day we can be as good as you demonstrate yourself to be in this book.