5 ms·

Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg Still Writes Code

90 points by jasonlbaptiste 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 17y ago
"I wonder when Bill Gates last wrote code for shipping products, and if that was 5+ years after Microsoft launched." Microsoft was founded in 1975. Gates cowrote DONKEY.BAS, which was released in 1981: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS
- wallflower 17y ago
  If you doubt BillG's technical acumen: A Joel Spolsky classic story, "My First BillG Review" "Bill came in... He had my spec in his hand. He had my spec in his hand!" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
  - wheaties 17y ago
    Thanks. That was a good read I hadn't read before. It's so very true. Non-software people shouldn't run software shops unless they can delegate to someone who is.
- contextfree 17y ago
  I've heard that Gates last wrote production code sometime in the mid-eighties, though he wrote gradually less and less before then.
  - akrito 17y ago
    He claims to have written much of the firmware in the TRS-80 Model 100, released in 1983: http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm#tc35 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm...
- aneesh 17y ago
  Late 1980s. In a speech from September 1997, BillG says: "I wish I got a chance to write more code. I do mess around. They don't let my code go in shipping products. They haven't done that for about eight years now." http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/pdc.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/...
cmelbye 17y ago
This brings up a question that I've been wondering lately. Does Steve Jobs code, or did he simply bring business skills to the table when Apple was starting out?
- jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
  From what i understand he has a knowledge of CS, but didnt delve into code at apple. From Mortiz' book, I can tell he did write code for Atari.
  - baddox 17y ago
    He reportedly claimed to have read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, which would certainly require some serious CS and mathematics chops to comprehend.
    - philwelch 17y ago
      "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books." "You're full of shit," Knuth responded. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_t...
      - culled 17y ago
        There's a Google talk that Randall Munroe did. Knuth was there and Munroe asked him about that story, Knuth seemed to deny it.
        gjm11 17y ago
        "Full of shit" seems a very un-Knuth-y expression. [edited to add: I should of course just have called it "unknuth", but my pun-sense wasn't quick enough on the mark.]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
bprater 17y ago
My first thought: is this the most effective way that the CEO of one of the web's biggest companies should be spending his time? Hacking is fun, sure, but I'm not sure I want the captain of my ship down greasing the engine. Everything sends a signal and I suspect his maturity isn't quite there when posting to Twitter (er, or does he use Facebook?) about a check-in. If this were a public company and I were a shareholder, I would wonder. A secret of success: do only the things that only you are capable of doing, like shaking hands and making deals. Let everyone else handle the rest.
- edj 17y ago
  > do only the things that you are capable of doing ..if you want to never challenge yourself, learn anything new, or push the boundaries of the possible.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  The captain of the ship does whatever he has to do to keep his ship running. Part of management is picking up the slack. While it may not be wise if Zuckerberg wanted to pretend he was just another production coder, there's no evidence that that's what's happened here. Why shouldn't a CEO be able to express some ideas in code? If that code is production quality there's no reason it couldn't go into production. A lot of managers get this idea that they shouldn't consort with the little people anymore. That is a horrible idea that leads to horrible abuses and problems; for some hard-to-understand reason involving ego and job security, the reality of things tends to warp a bit as it travels up the chains of management, even if the organization has a relatively flat hierarchy. The real way to make sure everything is going well is to interview and trust the people who are set out to do the job. imo every CEO should cut through the managers and interview a random selection of "low-level" people, i.e., people who actually build the thing your company is selling, or whatever, very often. They are the ones which are most passionate, best informed, and best equipped to help. I understand that sometimes organizations get to a size where managers are required to oversee the day-to-day, but it's vital that the highest levels at a company are concerned and informed more with front-line opinions than the warped reports passed up through five levels of managers.
- naz 17y ago
drp 17y ago
F8 is a conference, right? Doesn't this probably just mean he wrote some demo code, not real product code?
- thorax 17y ago
  Unit tests, though-- not super common to write those for demo code, right?
  - lrm242 17y ago
    Why not, you want the demo code to work, right?
    - thorax 17y ago
      Obviously it's better, but I'm not so sure it's common.
- markkoberlein 17y ago
  Whether it was for a feature or a demo, I like hearing about founders who turn into executives still coding and working on improving the code in their product.
- bandhunt 17y ago
  Yeah, that's what I assumed. He probably just misses coding and decided to do something for a demo
emehrkay 17y ago
I would too. It must be a lot easier having that many smart people to help you, the CEO, out
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
gojomo 17y ago
Blake Ross can't see Mark Zuckerberg's commits? What kind of silo'd operation do they have?
- erlanger 17y ago
  It's an attention grab. I think it's funny that 34 people "like" it when they don't even know what it is or does.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    Well, "like" is really vague. Could be that they like the fact that he's committing code, or that he's still writing code, or that he's posting about it, or... whatever. You can twist "like" to look bad for almost any FB wall post.
- blakeross 17y ago
  I can see Mark's commits. It's just much easier to ask him what it is when it's 2am and I'm not VPN'd into our corporate network.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Good to know! (I was teasing, mainly, but did wonder a bit if Mark's coy response was pure affect or not.)
swah 17y ago
Respect.
10ren 17y ago
Programmers should be like barristers or brain surgeons - you don't promote the best into management, you hire a manager. Like Fred's surgical team. But it's not like that, because, I think, the main usefulness of programming is not in the code, but in the recognition of the problem to solve. ie. business
flyosity 17y ago
And by "still writes code" does he mean "was paid to write someone else's social network, took that code and committed it to Facebook instead"?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

"I wonder when Bill Gates last wrote code for shipping products, and if that was 5+ years after Microsoft launched." Microsoft was founded in 1975. Gates cowrote DONKEY.BAS, which was released in 1981: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS

wallflower 17y ago
If you doubt BillG's technical acumen: A Joel Spolsky classic story, "My First BillG Review" "Bill came in... He had my spec in his hand. He had my spec in his hand!" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
- wheaties 17y ago
  Thanks. That was a good read I hadn't read before. It's so very true. Non-software people shouldn't run software shops unless they can delegate to someone who is.
contextfree 17y ago
I've heard that Gates last wrote production code sometime in the mid-eighties, though he wrote gradually less and less before then.
- akrito 17y ago
  He claims to have written much of the firmware in the TRS-80 Model 100, released in 1983: http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm#tc35 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm...
aneesh 17y ago
Late 1980s. In a speech from September 1997, BillG says: "I wish I got a chance to write more code. I do mess around. They don't let my code go in shipping products. They haven't done that for about eight years now." http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/pdc.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/...

cmelbye 17y ago

This brings up a question that I've been wondering lately. Does Steve Jobs code, or did he simply bring business skills to the table when Apple was starting out?

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
From what i understand he has a knowledge of CS, but didnt delve into code at apple. From Mortiz' book, I can tell he did write code for Atari.
- baddox 17y ago
  He reportedly claimed to have read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, which would certainly require some serious CS and mathematics chops to comprehend.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books." "You're full of shit," Knuth responded. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_t...
    - culled 17y ago
      There's a Google talk that Randall Munroe did. Knuth was there and Munroe asked him about that story, Knuth seemed to deny it.
      - gjm11 17y ago
        "Full of shit" seems a very un-Knuth-y expression. [edited to add: I should of course just have called it "unknuth", but my pun-sense wasn't quick enough on the mark.]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

bprater 17y ago

My first thought: is this the most effective way that the CEO of one of the web's biggest companies should be spending his time? Hacking is fun, sure, but I'm not sure I want the captain of my ship down greasing the engine. Everything sends a signal and I suspect his maturity isn't quite there when posting to Twitter (er, or does he use Facebook?) about a check-in. If this were a public company and I were a shareholder, I would wonder. A secret of success: do only the things that only you are capable of doing, like shaking hands and making deals. Let everyone else handle the rest.

edj 17y ago
> do only the things that you are capable of doing ..if you want to never challenge yourself, learn anything new, or push the boundaries of the possible.
cookiecaper 17y ago
The captain of the ship does whatever he has to do to keep his ship running. Part of management is picking up the slack. While it may not be wise if Zuckerberg wanted to pretend he was just another production coder, there's no evidence that that's what's happened here. Why shouldn't a CEO be able to express some ideas in code? If that code is production quality there's no reason it couldn't go into production. A lot of managers get this idea that they shouldn't consort with the little people anymore. That is a horrible idea that leads to horrible abuses and problems; for some hard-to-understand reason involving ego and job security, the reality of things tends to warp a bit as it travels up the chains of management, even if the organization has a relatively flat hierarchy. The real way to make sure everything is going well is to interview and trust the people who are set out to do the job. imo every CEO should cut through the managers and interview a random selection of "low-level" people, i.e., people who actually build the thing your company is selling, or whatever, very often. They are the ones which are most passionate, best informed, and best equipped to help. I understand that sometimes organizations get to a size where managers are required to oversee the day-to-day, but it's vital that the highest levels at a company are concerned and informed more with front-line opinions than the warped reports passed up through five levels of managers.
naz 17y ago

drp 17y ago

F8 is a conference, right? Doesn't this probably just mean he wrote some demo code, not real product code?

thorax 17y ago
Unit tests, though-- not super common to write those for demo code, right?
- lrm242 17y ago
  Why not, you want the demo code to work, right?
  - thorax 17y ago
    Obviously it's better, but I'm not so sure it's common.
markkoberlein 17y ago
Whether it was for a feature or a demo, I like hearing about founders who turn into executives still coding and working on improving the code in their product.
bandhunt 17y ago
Yeah, that's what I assumed. He probably just misses coding and decided to do something for a demo

emehrkay 17y ago

I would too. It must be a lot easier having that many smart people to help you, the CEO, out

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

gojomo 17y ago

Blake Ross can't see Mark Zuckerberg's commits? What kind of silo'd operation do they have?

erlanger 17y ago
It's an attention grab. I think it's funny that 34 people "like" it when they don't even know what it is or does.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  Well, "like" is really vague. Could be that they like the fact that he's committing code, or that he's still writing code, or that he's posting about it, or... whatever. You can twist "like" to look bad for almost any FB wall post.
blakeross 17y ago
I can see Mark's commits. It's just much easier to ask him what it is when it's 2am and I'm not VPN'd into our corporate network.
- gojomo 17y ago
  Good to know! (I was teasing, mainly, but did wonder a bit if Mark's coy response was pure affect or not.)

swah 17y ago

Respect.

10ren 17y ago

Programmers should be like barristers or brain surgeons - you don't promote the best into management, you hire a manager. Like Fred's surgical team. But it's not like that, because, I think, the main usefulness of programming is not in the code, but in the recognition of the problem to solve. ie. business

flyosity 17y ago

And by "still writes code" does he mean "was paid to write someone else's social network, took that code and committed it to Facebook instead"?