I don't really follow anyone, but here's a few whose work I've admired and learnt from (not just their code): D. Richard Hipp (SQLite, Fossil) https://en.wikip

I don't really follow anyone, but here's a few whose work I've admired and learnt from (not just their code): D. Richard Hipp (SQLite, Fossil) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._Richard_Hipp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._Richard_Hipp Guido van Rossum (Python) Any of the FreeBSD folk. Same goes for the PostgreSQL lot too - I just like their way of doing things in a calm, collected and efficient manner. Well, at least compared to some other dev teams I've seen :) Donald Knuth of course. The guy who tried to make Objective-C more Smalltalkish. Uh, Marcel Weiher. Had to look that up. Bret Victor. There's more, but that's all I can think of for now.