Who are your top 5 programmers of all time and why? Mine: 1. Fabrice Bellard (ffmpeg, tinycc, quickjs) 2. John Carmack (doom, quake) 3. John McCarthy (lisp, father of AI, invented GC, timesharing) 4. Linus (linux man) 5. Dennis Ritchie (C and unix, K&R book)
Guys - Donald Knuth! * Wanted to write a computer programming book * Figured out that there were no good typesetting programs available * Decided to write a typesetting book, but didn't like the current programming languages/paradigms * Invented the Web programming language * Used the programming language to write the world's premier typesetting program in the 70s - TeX (still in HEAVY use almost unchanged - I write all my books in it) * Didn't like any of the fonts available, so decided to write his own * Writing fonts was too painstaking, so invented a font-creating program, METAFONT * Wrote three fonts (still in common use) * Wrote a series of 5(I think?) books describing his system * Ready to write book itself - didn't like any existing computer architecture to write about * Invented a new computer architecture to describe in his programming books * Finally, wrote actual book he intended to write in the first place
@zack_overflow Linus is lower tbh. He's great but didn't do that much Ken Thompson is definitely somewhere up there, Ken created UTF-8 with Rob Pike, created B lang, also created a chess AI in 1980 that bet everyone, which was amazing for the time
@zack_overflow If you know you know
@zack_overflow what about that guy who made roller coaster tycoon alone in assembly
@zack_overflow 1. Zack Radisic (tyvm, editor with gratuitous explosions)
@zack_overflow linus where do all servers run? what vsc do we all use?
@zack_overflow I won't replace any of them but would like to add Margaret Hamilton
@zack_overflow Joe Armstrong, the main co-inventor of Erlang. His influence only grows with the evolution of hardware. He was at least 40 years ahead of his time.
@zack_overflow Fabrice Bellard, Donald Knuth, Dennis Ritchie, John Carmack, Ken Thompson
@zack_overflow Bellard is so cracked his other projects like qemu, work on quantization, etc isnt even mentioned and yet still number one for so many folks.
@zack_overflow Fabrice, Brandon Eich, Knuth, Dijkstra, Ritchie
@zack_overflow 1.linus torvalds 2.Denis Ritchie 3. Ken Thompson 4. Satoshi nakomoto 5. David R. O'Hallaron
@zack_overflow I'd put Ken Thompson in top 5, maybe even top 3... Carmack for sure in top 3. 🔥
@zack_overflow Inventor of GC? Instantly down 50 notches at least!
@zack_overflow Everyone is forgetting Mike Burrows.
@zack_overflow programmers temporary algorithms eternal like spore patterns coded in DNA
@zack_overflow Surprised no one is naming von Neumann in the replies
@zack_overflow Mike Paul (LuaJit) Hisham Muhammad (htop, gobo Linux, Luarocks, Teal language) Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto (Ruby language, and super friendly)
@zack_overflow Add Randy Linden (doom SNES port, Bleem PS1 emulator) Dude goes "wow PCs can read PS1 discs, that means I can write a PS1 emulator" Like yeah OK you have to emulate the whole system still but sure the discs can be read so you're basically there
@zack_overflow I’m lucky enough that the n1 of that list is aware of my existence
@zack_overflow Add Stallman. Not even because of his software:
@zack_overflow not in order - Chris Sawyer - Richard M. Stallman - Matthew Dillon - Andrew Kelly - Devine Lu Linvega - Grace Hopper - Ken Thompson - Terry A. Davis - All the homebrew, retro and demoscene programmers and GNU hackers who do it for the love of the game
Guys - Donald Knuth! * Wanted to write a computer programming book * Figured out that there were no good typesetting programs available * Decided to write a typesetting book, but didn't like the current programming languages/paradigms * Invented the Web programming language * Used the programming language to write the world's premier typesetting program in the 70s - TeX (still in HEAVY use almost unchanged - I write all my books in it) * Didn't like any of the fonts available, so decided to write his own * Writing fonts was too painstaking, so invented a font-creating program, METAFONT * Wrote three fonts (still in common use) * Wrote a series of 5(I think?) books describing his system * Ready to write book itself - didn't like any existing computer architecture to write about * Invented a new computer architecture to describe in his programming books * Finally, wrote actual book he intended to write in the first place
@zack_overflow We need some more academics: 1. Edsger Dijkstra (shortest path, structured programming, semaphores) 2. Dennis Richie 3. Douglas Engelbart (Mother of all demos, graphics, mice, video conferencing, collaborative editing, etc.) 4. Linus Torvalds 5. John Carmack