There are a lot of upvotes to this post, however not a lot of discussion on the papers mentioned. I am curious how many have read these papers, and the value they provide. Reading all of these seems like a time investment and I am trying to gauge it's worth.
I'll be honest: I've only read two of these, the papers by Thompson and by Gabriel. These were both fairly quick reads, if I recall correctly. Another three, those by Parnas, by Landin, and by Backus, have been on my "to read" list for a long time.
I read "Reflections on Trusting Trust" several years ago, and recall that it seemed clever, but not especially deep. It probably wouldn't make my top 10 list, if I had one. Then again, I'm not really a systems guy, so it may just be personal bias.
On the hand, I'm a Lisper, and so Gabriel's paper, colloquially known as the "Worse is Better" paper, is a must read. I do agree that it's worthwhile reading for programmers at large. If you enjoy it, I also highly recommend Gabriel's book "Patterns of Software" (available in PDF from his website). (Note: although this book does have something to do with the "patterns movement", Gabriel is pretty much a contrarian to the what you might call the "Gang of Four" school, so don't let any preconceptions you might have about their book and its reception put you off Gabriel's writings.)
