+++ /dev/null
----
-book:
- author: Paul Gannon
- cover_image: 'colossus-bletchley-parks-greatest-secret.jpg'
- publication_year: '2007'
- title: 'Colossus: Bletchley Park''s Greatest Secret'
-plan:
- date_added: '2019-08-13'
----
--- /dev/null
+---
+book:
+ author: Paul Gannon
+ cover_image: 'colossus-bletchley-parks-greatest-secret.jpg'
+ publication_year: '2007'
+ title: 'Colossus: Bletchley Park''s Greatest Secret'
+plan:
+ date_added: '2019-08-13'
+review:
+ date_read: 2021-02-07
+ format: paperback
+ rating: 4
+---
+
+This is a detailed account of the work done to build Colossus at Bletchley Park during WWII.
+There is a lot of information that I haven't read elsewhere, including a lot of detail about the individual Fish links and variants of ciphers used by the Germans.
+
+A lot of the details are reserved for the appendix, so you can follow the narrative without getting too bogged down.
+(I've read so many accounts of wheel breaking, wheel setting, and so on, I did skip those passages in this book.)
+
+I took lots of notes and learnt quite a few things, and something I was struck by is the number of parallels to modern software development.
+Although the output looks very different, many of the design principles look very familiar.
+
+I'd recommend this for anybody interested in the history of Bletchley Park.