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.)
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.)