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There Are No Famous Programmers

303 points by suraj 16y ago

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jarin 16y ago
It's a good point that programmers only become famous among non-programmers because of non-code reasons, but the same applies to specialists in almost any technical field (except for maybe physics and math).
- bad_user 16y ago
  > It's a good point that programmers only become famous among programmers because of non-code reasons There, fixed that for you.
  - btmorex 16y ago
    Actually, a lot of programmers are famous for what they've created (code reasons). Think Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, etc. To be honest, Zed Shaw seems to be the exception since he's almost certainly more well known for blogging than any code that he's written.
    - lelele 16y ago
      > Actually, a lot of programmers are famous for what they've created (code reasons). Think Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, etc. Not at all: "Let's try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. [...] Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up." Can you name 4 people on Linux, Perl, etc. core teams? I'd bet you can't. Or do we think that Torvalds, Wall, etc. wrote the software they are famous for on their own? That's what Zed is talking about.
      - btmorex 16y ago
        I was responding to the poster I responded to, not Zed's post. Specifically, I think most famous programmers (at least among other programmers) are famous for what they coded. That said, I can actually name 4 core contributers to Linux although I'm not sure what the significance of that might be (Linus, Ted T'so, David Miller, Andrew Morton).
      - nailer 16y ago
        Linus, Chris Mason (who's doing BtrFS), Ulrich Drepper (because he's really angry all the time), and uh, that British guy who's number 2. Damnit, you're right.
    - stonemetal 16y ago
      All of those guys are famous for leading a project not the code they have written for those projects.
      - plinkplonk 16y ago
        "All of those guys are famous for leading a project not the code they have written for those projects." Well duh, what made them leaders of these projects in the first place?
        stonemetal 16y ago
        People skills? I didn't get into Linux until much latter but from what I understand Linux as written by Linus wasn't that great. It was submissions and work by people better than himself that made Linux what it is today. His ability to code may have grown since then but his super wonder coding powers aren't what got Linux off the ground.
        plinkplonk 16y ago
        "People skills?" classic Office Space scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti53kjHsAas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti53kjHsAas
- acangiano 16y ago
  Including physics and math. With very few exceptions, you only know about scientists when they step outside of their specialized fields and make an effort to popularize their discipline to the general public.
- arethuza 16y ago
  The only exception I can think to this is 19th century engineer Brunel - he came 2nd in the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel By way of comparison, TBL was 99th.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  It's somewhat similar to how Malcolm Gladwell gets all the credit for popularizing ideas discovered/researched by other people (10,000 hours, etc). Fame takes work, just like everything else.
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mtoledo 16y ago
"I still have to do programmer interviews like everyone else. No matter how much code I put out, I still have to solve stupid puzzles about coconuts and manholes. No matter how many web servers or email frameworks or database servers or chat servers or assemblers I write I still have to prove I can code. No matter how many copies of my software get deployed I still have to prove I can make reliable software." I still think that's an isolated fact though, and most software shops would offer Zed a job without asking him 'What is a pointer?' questions if he was, for instance, being interviewed by some rubyist (given the notoriety of mongrel). Maybe as he says, I'm wrong. But it could also be just like the guy that offered Ninh Bui a job where 'the candidate must have some experience with Phusion Passenger' (Ninh is one of the creators of Passenger). Some employers just mess up, and having offered Zed a sysadmin job might just have been that, an isolated fact. Now, I would risk on saying that famous programmers could be made more of 'web presence' and 'open source code' than commercial code. Like, Zed's famous for mongrel and his other open source works (lamson, etc), but I'd say that, in my opinion, he's also famous because of his blog and being a prolific writer and, at the same time, quite controversial. Curiously, he's working on a very cool project commercially, Dropbox (very cool in my opinion anyway), but I don't think that has anything to do with how famous he is, even though, in my opinion, that might be the skill that's most relevant for me, as an employer, to know if I wanted to hire him (as most software shops are making apps, and not email frameworks or web servers). So maybe, just like the first step on being famous is having lots of blog readers and open source projects (rather than having made a great contribution to a commercial product), the second step is getting funding, being to parties, etc. (and I just don't notice that because I'm not famous, or because I'm not on SF)
mike-cardwell 16y ago
I'd prefer to write an application which made me wealthy, than an application which made me famous. Wealth is a useful thing to have, fame is more of an annoyance surely...?
- jgrahamc 16y ago
  I dunno, fame can be useful. Just imagine all the groupies that came after the publication of The Geek Atlas.
  - dugmartin 16y ago
    I really don't want to image what those groupies would be like.
- Aetius 16y ago
  Fame is wealth. You're talking about money.
ErrantX 16y ago
Interesting post from Zed there. It's even gone so far that people demand that we use the BSD license (or any license) that doesn't require credit for using your work. Other programmers don't want to have to put your name in a credits section of their applications. Counter opinion (I realise this is only a subset of Zeds point, which I do agree has some useful points)? The reason many of us like to see libraries, frameworks and support structure (as opposed to software which has an end use) licensed under BSD or similar is less because we actively desire to remove attribution.. but because we like to have control over our own code licensing choices. Generally programmers are pretty good about credit. More importantly the GPL does not force you to mention anything in the credits... at all... you can just leave all the references in the code - and in many cases people just won't read that. So I don't buy this argument much at all. (side point: I maintain a couple of FOSS/Open Source projects and love the idea of stuff I find interesting being used in all sorts of ways. I couldn't really care less about whether someone makes $100 Million using it in their app. In fact I do care about that; firstly I care positively about the fact that I helped them with their success. Secondly I kick myself that it wasn't something I thought of doing. Doh! I prefer to trust that someone will use my code ethically; by which I mean a) tell other people about the cool piece of code X that they are using and b) contribute back to us. But I personally don't like the idea of forcing that behavior :P Although; it's understandable why people do use the GPL for non-software code). You know; on a related note I think the section before the above quote was interesting. And he has something of a point - that we don't think enough about the people making useful code for us. I don't think we are stealing their soul :) but there is definitely a lack of communication (even when the GPL is in use). tl;dr - I don't buy the idea that certain licenses address the problem of programmer fame.
- icefox 16y ago
  Everyone knows that BSD requires you give them credit. Right? Right? I hope people are fulfilling the full requirement of the copyright and not just #1 "2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed by the <organization>." For example in safari click Help/Acknowledgments
hackermom 16y ago
John Carmack is famous, kinda.
- nihilocrat 16y ago
  On an indirectly related note, it helps if people hear your voice or see your picture. I find this podcast really interesting, because you hear stories from people who are otherwise just another name on the credits: http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-podcast/ http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-podcast/
- Tycho 16y ago
  Does Shigeru Miyamoto program?
  - hackermom 16y ago
    To my knowledge, he hasn't ever written a line of code, but if he did he would've been an excellent example. Bill Gates is also an interesting example - he is known to pretty much everyone for a number of reasons, among those, probably the least, but still, for the versions of BASIC he wrote.
- gnoupi 16y ago
  Probably because he worked on things which were entertaining, and not "tools" to people, simply. You can find plenty of famous people in the video game industry, recognized for their work. But you can be a wonderful tool programmer, make wonderful databases, webservers, and else... Ultimately, those are only tools. And people don't have especially respect or excitement for tools, they just use them.
  - earcar 16y ago
    I think we are getting to (what I think is) the point: You will be recognized only if your work excites your users so much.
  - NickPollard 16y ago
    That's definitely a factor, but he's still remembered. It would have been easy for the programming to have been ignored and Carmack to have been overshadowed by Romero, but that didn't happen. Amongst game programmers, we certainly pay more attention to who writes the code, not just who designs the game or draws the art. Most gamers are more likely to know of Cliff Bleszinski than Tim Sweeney, but programmers are more likely to know of Sweeney.
deleted 16y ago
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plinkplonk 16y ago
"Let's try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. Maybe it's Rails or Python or something. Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up. I can't do that for anything I use. Alright, let's say you can do that. You know a myriad of things about the people who make your tools, but can you honestly say you know as much about them as you do about the tools they made you? Be honest with yourself and really look at how much you know about the people behind your gear as you do about the gear itself." This is very bizarre. Isn't this true for all tools/man made artifacts we use? I have no idea who exactly designed my car, my guitar , my cellphone, or even the apartment I live in. And when I do know their names I certainly don't know them better than I do my tools. Why should I want to? "I still have to do programmer interviews like everyone else. No matter how much code I put out, I still have to solve stupid puzzles about coconuts and manholes. No matter how many web servers or email frameworks or database servers or chat servers or assemblers I write I still have to prove I can code. No matter how many copies of my software get deployed I still have to prove I can make reliable software." I wouldn't want to comment on what Zed's personal experience is , but I know many programmers who wouldn't have to "prove that they can code". "Fame" sees to correlate inversely with having to jump through hoops. I doubt if anyone really wants to test Linus (or Carmack or DHH or any other "famous" programmer) for "ability to code". Outside the MegaCorp, and especially in startups, a reputation for Open Source contributions helps you avoid stupid questions/tests etc, at least in my limited experience. It is often the undistinguished guy with the undistinguished cv that has to go through the technical nitpick interview. I think this experience may be somewhat unique to Zed. No harm in that of course. Just pointing out that is far from universal. Just my perception, but Zed seems to get weirder with every post he writes. I don't mean that he is crazy or anything, just that the logic in his posts seems increasingly frayed.
- lelele 16y ago
  OTOH, many people think that every cool innovation from Apple comes straight out from Steve Jobs' brain.
  - sovande 16y ago
    Maybe not, but it goes through Steve's brain and stop there if he does not like it, and that has served Apple well.
weavejester 16y ago
Wait a moment. Aside from a few exceptions, most product design is unattributed. Can you name four people who worked on the mobile phone you use? Or indeed any appliance you use? Of the programmers and engineers I do know about, I don't know about them because I use the product, but because there's something interesting or unusual about the person.
- varjag 16y ago
  Noone designs mobile phones or appliances in their free time.
  - weavejester 16y ago
    Uh... so what? Are you saying people can only be famous for work they do in their free time?
    - varjag 16y ago
      I'm not saying that and you know it. If someone uses fruits of your passion for free, it would be nice to get an acknowledgement for that, wouldn't you agree?
      - weavejester 16y ago
        "I'm not saying that and you know it." I had no idea what you were saying. Your point wasn't very clear. "If someone uses fruits of your passion for free, it would be nice to get an acknowledgement for that, wouldn't you agree?" Certainly, but acknowledgements don't make you famous.
      - Psyonic 16y ago
        But you're asking for things to work differently there than everywhere else. Humans are creatures of habit, and a product is a product.
l0nwlf 16y ago
"Maybe it's Rails or Python or something. Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up." Wrong. I use python and I do know the name of at least 20 core devs. May be because I hang at #python-dev or follow them at twitter, but I do know. As a matter of fact if I love any project I'll know the core devs. Sorry Zed, you lost me there on that part or else I was loving your article.
- apgwoz 16y ago
  You're certainly an exception, not the rule. In my immediate circle of python programmers, most of them would name Guido, Beazley and maybe on a good day Alex Martelli. I have to agree with Zed on that point.
  - bockris 16y ago
    I don't read python-dev and I could name 7 core Python devs without even thinking. (Guido van Rossum, Alex Martelli, Raymond Hettinger, Martin van Loweis, Jeremy Hilton, Georg Brandl, Fredrik Lundh) (I'm really bummed that David Beazley didn't come to mind right away. Sorry David)
jgrahamc 16y ago
But there is Google. And plenty of people have Googled me and I've been told in job interviews that the interviewer had downloaded code I'd written and read it.
silkodyssey 16y ago
If Microsoft Word were written by a single programmer that programmer would have been famous!
- giardini 16y ago
  Most of Microsoft Word was written by one programmer, the late Willoughby Whigginton, formerly of Microsoft. "Will", as his friends knew him, despaired and committed suicide after the 8,234th time an unwitting stranger greeted him yet again with the expression "Word®, Dude!".
  - silkodyssey 16y ago
    Well the point I was trying to make was that people become famous when they can be linked to something that a lot of people care about. We see this in the entertainment industry where it's easy to associate a blockbuster film with the stars or directors of the film. This is not typically the case in the software industry where the Blockbuster software so to speak are produced by Companies and not lone programmers. That is to say the company is the face of the software. I used Microsoft Word (maybe I should have used Office) because it's an example of a software application where the company that makes it is well known and I thought if it were possible for one person to create an application with as large an impact as Microsoft Office has had in the world then surely that person would be remembered. One notable exception to the rule I think is Linus Torvalds. He still remains the face of linux although what linux is today is due to contributions from a large number of people.
    - basugasubaku 16y ago
      Raymond Chen tells a story that Notepad won some industry award in the late 90s, but no one at Microsoft could remember who the original author was: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/02/9915989.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/02/99159... And follow-up post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/17/9923309.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/17/99233...
- 16y ago
edw519 16y ago
If you want to be famous, go be an entertainer, athlete, or politician. If you want to be a programmer, check your ego at the door. The two biggest roadblocks to success in programming are incompetence and attitude. BigEgo = BadAttitude. I measure my success not in fame, but in the value gained by those who use my software, and the value gained by those they serve, and so on, and so on. I don't know them and they don't know me, but I'd like to think the world's a better place because of all the ones and zeroes I've arranged. They are the stars and that's good enough for me.
- awt 16y ago
  Doesn't everyone have an ego? Isn't it really hard to check it at the door? I think students of Buddhism have been trying to figure out how to do this for centuries. I don't think it's as simple as checking it at the door.
  - tom_ilsinszki 16y ago
    Checking your ego (against reality) and getting rid of it completely are 2 different things.
    - brlewis 16y ago
      "Reality" is the key word here. The more programming you do, the more you'll know your limitations.
  - timr 16y ago
    "Doesn't everyone have an ego? Isn't it really hard to check it at the door?" My thoughts exactly. The parent comment is the sort of "advice" that is easy to dispense and makes everyone feel good, but is fundamentally useless. These platitudes are the honeypot comments of online forums -- everyone votes for them because they "agree", but they might as well be voting up a picture of a kitten hanging from a tree branch. It's comforting to think that we're somehow above the base human need for recognition, but not very close to the truth. For example, why is it okay for entertainers, actors and politicians to pursue fame, while programmers must toil in selfless obscurity? Are we supposed to be martyrs? Also, not for nothing, but when the guy with the top comment score on HN -- the guy who wore a t-shirt bearing his HN login name at Startup School -- tells you to abandon your ego, well...I'm no english major, but there's a certain situational irony there.
d4nt 16y ago
I can't name the architect for the office building I'm sitting in. Or the designer of my (distinctly average) car. Having said that, I know that Tim Berners Lee created the Web, Jon Resig built jQuery and James Dyson designed my vacuum cleaner. I don't think creating something "you use all day" should qualify you for being famous. Doing something new and very innovative sometimes does though.
- bennysaurus 16y ago
  Linus Torvolds as well - There's a number of reasonably famous programmers out there, and they're often known for revolutionising the areas of industry as opposed to their celebrity lifestyles. Not sure what the writer is on about here really.
- rythie 16y ago
  Are those the people that really created the products you use today though? Tim Berners Lee may have created the web, but he created it without fonts tags, images, layout and so on. The web exists because of the millions of people who put a lot of work into it including Amazon, Altavista, Google, Yahoo, Netscape and so on. jQuery lists 21 people in it's team and 8 past members: http://jquery.org/team http://jquery.org/team Did you buy the very first Dyson vacuum cleaner? (the DC01 in 1993) or one designed by one of it's 1500+ staff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_%28company%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_%28company%29 Most products are built by a lot of people but just have a famous leader (who may or may not have made the very first version that you probably never saw).
  - vessenes 16y ago
    In the interest of securing our oral history about the web, Tim Berners Lee had layout and images. And built-in click-to-edit. http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser1.html http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser1.html
    - rythie 16y ago
      In 1991 it looked like this: http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/T... In 1992 Erwise, ViollawWW and Lynx were created and Mosaic in 1993, Netscape in 1994. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web) That picture was from 1993, though I'd concede I got a few inaccuracies in my comment, however Tim Berners Lee, didn't create the whole web by himself, even in the very early days there were others creating it too, that have now been forgotten.
albertsun 16y ago
For some reason, this very strongly reminded me of this scene from Entourage where Johnny Drama has to audition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC57rdYMM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC57rdYMM "Still I have to sing for my supper." It's like Zed Shaw is really angry and yelling at the hiring manager "Do you know who I am?!"
- drats 16y ago
  I read a story on HN a while ago about a guy who was connected to a powerful politician who was getting hassled at airport security, who didn't care about this name-dropping, and his ego got the better of him and he just flipped and started screaming "Do you know who I am?!" at them over and over. The response of the security guys was to casually call over the radio to the drag-you-away-for-a-free-prostate-exam TSA hardmen "I think you better come down here, there is a guy who doesn't know who he is".
- nailer 16y ago
  To be honest, if it was for a Rails or Python gig, that would be a reasonable question. Zed has a lot of projects, people active in either community should know who he is. As they should, say, Jesse Noller, or Joe Stump, or other well known programmers.
mahmud 16y ago
Useless rant that doesn't add anything to my life, or probably yours.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
Well, this is the entire point of art, right? You are building an artifact for people to interact with. Sometimes the artifact reveals aspects of the creator's personality, but generally that is done subtly. You're trying to suggest and seduce, not overwhelm and assault. (Even the arts which aggressively push the author's persona - think: a lot of hip-hop, and a lot of standup comedy - are about selling persona, not person. Performers play characters. Even when they are playing themselves.)
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Reminds of Hunter Thompson. He eventually got to the point where when he gave a speech or public appearance, he didn't know if the people wanted Hunter Thompson or "Hunter Thompson," and I think he began to have some difficulty distinguishing the two.
ahoyhere 16y ago
On the other hand, I've written Rails tutorials for newbies and people constantly think I'm a Ruby badass and ask absolutely no further questions. Perceived character, reputation, and the way you make a person feel has more to do with whether they innately assume you are good, than sheer fame. It's so easy to choose the wrong variable when you're trying to figure out a (social) system.
jasonkester 16y ago
Wow, I've never come away from a HN article embarrassed for the author before. I had expected from the title to see an article explaining why there don't tend to be a lot of famous computer programmers. I was completely unprepared to read a complaint from a guy who thinks he should be famous, yet isn't treated with the deference he thinks he deserves. Yikes! I had to stop after 3 paragraphs.
- kiba 16y ago
  You must be reading a different essay. I interpret that the author's fame doesn't help the author at all and that fame is a pointless asset.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Indeed, that would be the case if the author were indeed famous. But he's not. Fame is defined by people knowing who you are, yet this guy's issue is that nobody knows who he is. QED, he's not famous.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      In that case, most celebrities arguably aren't famous. All people know is a fiction and nobody knows who they are.
  - dagw 16y ago
    It could simply be that the author isn't actually anywhere near as famous as he wants to think he is.
  - JustAGeek 16y ago
    That's how I understood it, too.
  - thetrumanshow 16y ago
    I have always thought that programming fame might be a ticket-punch that you get and then no one questions your abilities from then on. I guess it isn't so. Thanks to the OP for treading this road and reporting back. Maybe this is also true for web-famous entrepreneurs? Anyone ever start a somewhat well-known company that folded and you had to go work for someone else? Did you still have to earn respect from scratch at the new company? Now I think I understand what I've wanted isn't possible. There is no way to prove yourself once-and-for-all. The only solution is to solve the money problem once-and-for-all, and then you never have to bother with proving yourself at a new company again.
alttab 16y ago
Fame is a distraction. 'Nuff said. As far as coders becoming factory workers - I think this is true, depending on the route you take. Do you just write code? Or do you also manage people, make great presentations, or define business models? Just because you can write code, its hard to think about something invisible, and no one else in your business can do it doesn't mean you're a rock star. This requires a programmer to walk around thinking they can do everyone else's job but not vice versa. If there was only one thing about (us) programmers I hate the most it is our collective attitude. Our holier-than-thou more-technical-and-logical-than you bull shit. Then we complain about accolades, accomplishment, social standing. We are what we make ourselves. What we do does not define who we are or what we think we are entitled to. I agree it takes a lot of distinguishing to get noticed as a programmer but I would say that's true whatever you do in life.
- jonsmock 16y ago
  Wow, I really needed to hear this right now. Thanks.
10ren 16y ago
There are famous programmers, but Zed's right that they don't become famous because of their coding ability. I'd say they become famous because of impact. And I'm thinking of the really famous (to us) coders here: Thompson, Richie, Fred Brooks, Dijkstra, Knuth, Larry Wall and so on. These people had an impact for market reasons, not for their code in itself: a need; an idea for a tool or product; and a benefit of it that met that need (not saying the need is first chronologically). In some cases, that "product" was something they wrote about programming, not their code at all. Programming: unimportant. Meeting needs: important.
lelele 16y ago
I think this post nails down what I think is a recurring issue with us techies. We concentrate too much on what we do, and too little in being known for what we do, which, according to Chris Lytle, is the third reason of success: "The third secret of success is that you have to be known for what you know. Other people have to know you know what you're doing. When other people know you know what you're doing, they come to you for help and advice, not just for your low price." What about the former two reasons of success? Here they are: "The first secret of success is that you have to know what you're doing. There are a lot of people who fail simply because they don't study their industry. They don't go to seminars. They don't read. And they fail. [...] The second secret of success is that you have to know you know what you're doing. Success is a process, and repeating successful behaviors over and over again is key. But you have to know what is working so you can repeat what's working." (from The Accidental Salesperson, a book about selling I highly recommend)
neilk 16y ago
The very definition of a product is an artifact that doesn't require a human relationship. If you need to be in touch with the people that made it or maintain it, that's called consulting. (You may want to be in closer contact, for instance, to shape the direction of the Linux kernel or something. But you don't need to have such a relationship to use Linux.) Excellence in product design means anonymity for the people who made it.
pcestrada 16y ago
In my experience, programmers can attain a certain amount of fame at the local level.You can become well-known for being the author of a key piece of software that your company uses. Unfortunately, it just means people know who to talk to when their is a bug or a feature request.
neilk 16y ago
I think Zed should know by now that the tech interview is also a personality screen. It's helpful to know if you're hiring someone who rolls his eyes when asked to do something he thinks trivial. Or who wants to be treated like a rockstar. Also, it's a way of getting team buy-in, even when hiring a lead. Whatever the team rituals are to establish respect, the new guy has to pass them. If it's dumb questions about missionaries and cannibals, that's lame, but so be it.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  In short, ritual justifies lameness?
  - ekanes 16y ago
    No, he's saying lame rituals help you avoid hiring prima donnas.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      It may also scare away those who do not like lameness. I once had an interview for a Smalltalk position, where, after the 3rd question, I asked, "are all of these questions from the well known list of Smalltalk interview questions? I already know those." I suspect that this lost me the position, which I think is strange, but fortunate. The lameness of an interview is often a good indicator of how bureaucratized or politicized the corporate environment is.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        > It may also scare away those who do not like lameness. This is precisely the point ekanes was trying to make. It's not lameness, but perceived lameness. If you perceive the company as lame, you would not be a good fit anyway. But rest assured that, if I were the interviewer, your recognition of a known list of interview questions would not cost you the position. And my interviews are neither lame, nor only about coding skills.
    - 16y ago
shin_lao 16y ago
You should care about people using and enjoying what you build. I don't really care whether my users know my birthday or what my favourite dessert is. Actually, I'm pretty happy they don't know anything about me. The author of this article needs an attitude adjustment.
enntwo 16y ago
If you use something enough, and truly want to understand it, then I assume you know all about some programmers, and that enough others are like you that these people can be considered famous. It also seems laughable to think that those programmers who are considered famous do not benefit from it in the industry. Off the top of my head: John Resig Matz Steve Yegges Shawn Hargreaves _why And assuming you have been to one conference, or dug a little bit deeper, I am sure you know much of the core team and library teams around a technology too. I am not sure what qualifies someone as famous, but I would be surprised if these people did not qualify given the right fields. Just because you don't know about them doesnt mean thousands of other people don't.
bugschivers 16y ago
I personally actually find myself agreeing with pretty much all of this article. The point is, is that it is not about fame, that is tangential to point, which is that programmers don't celebrate other programmers, that they don't value other programmer's work. This is the only industry I know of, where people give away so much for so little, and they don't ask anything in return, because none of you seem able to appreciate the effort involved in your own or anyone else's work. I don't think that it is absurd to know the name of the person who created the tool you use EVERY day, when they are from your OWN industry, only other programmers have the capacity to appreciate the craftsmanship and work involved. That is the saddest thing about the programming industry, that you all can’t see how much difference you can make, you give a project attention, hey, maybe you even donate some money and express some gratitude that someone went out of their way to work in their spare time, to give you something that you don’t even have to pay for and you all reap dividends. Maybe it’s because this industry is so young, but something has to give, or you WILL be relegated to the positions of machinery, actual real people have to sit there and code this stuff, they give up evenings and weekends, they sacrifice time with family and friends, non-programmers don’t get this, YOU do. This industry needs to learn how to appreciate and stop attacking those who put their creations out there, the one man band who spends every weekend keeping a ruby gem up to date matters, the handful of guys coding frameworks and platforms and libraries and everything else matter, because you guys use their work, regularly. They should get your attention, not Jobs who has his billions to play with, or Linus, who has his enormous Linux universe to maintain, or any of the guys famous by association with big companies, products or projects. The little guys, who keep the whole shebang ticking over, who work endlessly, in the shadows of your attention, creating awesome, cool things for you play with, tools for you to work with and games for you to relax with.
- bugschivers 16y ago
  Reading more recent comments, I see a common theme, the "I don't code for glory", this isn't a rant about fame, it is a rant about recognition, from within the industry. I worked as a dog groomer years ago and we had competitions and awards and yes there were even famous dog groomers. Nobody codes for glory, lol, but recognition is a different thing, I read once "people will crawl over broken glass for recognition", which is funny because it seems that programmers run away from recognition. The things you write do not need to be ground-breaking, game-changing or revolutionary to garner recognition, you deserve recognition for putting the time in, for creating something that people rely on, that works. Somewhere there is a disconnect, everybody DESERVES recognition, it is not about ego, or fame, or fortunes, or groupies, it is about connecting with someone within your own field and saying "hey, you did a good job, I appreciate it".
abrahamsen 16y ago
Jeffrey Law, Richard Kenner, Mark Michell, Ian Taylor. That wasn't hard. I apologize for any misspelling, as I went by memory. On the other hand, I don't know the names of any startup founders more recent (or less successful) than facebook. I believe Hacker News attract a certain non-typical brand of programmers, if they are more likely to know about "VCs and term sheets" than about who made their tools. Of course programmers are rarely famous (for programming) outside their profession. That is a fate programming share with just all but a select few professions.
- ploer 16y ago
  Yeah, that definitely struck me as the odd bit in the article -- being jealous of the "fame" that startup founders get sure seems like a pretty specialized breed of envy!
tetha 16y ago
It is interesting to see that someone arrived at a similar conclusion as me. However, I went a totally different way of arriving there. By now, programmers kind of feel like pioneers and/or drainers. Think about this for a second. Did Ruby On Rails enable you to venture into new lands, because you are able to program your web application more efficiently? I think so. Does RoR make your daily programmer life easier overall? I think so, too. Thus, someone ventured into a place and built roads and paths for people to come there and to live comfortably. However, did anyone really remember the pioneers in germans marshes, in america? Does anyone see the drainers maintaining the life support systems in the cities? No. Does anyone remember the first person to write a web framework, to write a next generation language, or maintaining libraries which easen your daily life? No. I think this is a striking similarity.
z92 16y ago
"[Being famous]... makes it harder because now for some bizarre reason people think my fame means I can't code." So true. When I hear of any famous programmer, I think the same.
agentultra 16y ago
I'm not convinced that Zed was suggesting that programmers should be famous for what they do (or that anyone should). The idea of programmers being like rock-stars is wholly preposterous. It's much harder for us to convince anyone that we're cool. I highly doubt I will ever get a coterie of groupies and sycophants to feed me drugs and sleep with me because I have a high wpm and can write a 2000-line report script without a single bug or syntax error. What I do think he is suggesting is that industry should give us recognition for what we do. I honestly don't know who designed the car my taxi driver drove me to work in this morning. However, I'm pretty sure that if the design of the car was a significant feat in engineering then the engineer who designed it probably has a shiny little trophy above their desk. And if that person ever went looking for a job I doubt their interviewer would waste time asking them questions to ascertain whether they're an engineer. This person would have the industry recognition to open certain doors implicitly. There is some industry recognition, sure. Amongst us programmers. I just finished reading "Coders at Work" not too long ago. There are names in there that I'd expect most geeks would know and be familiar with. It was a very inspiring read. Now as an experiment, ask your boss if they know what any of those people are recognized for. I know I'm probably begging the question. The point I'm trying to make is that the people we work for that make so much money off of what we build... they don't know who these people are. They don't take time to familiarize themselves with these sorts of things. I think industry awards, trade publications, and the like would go a long way to bridge that gap. It has worked for pretty much every other industry. Why is programming such an exception?
CapitalistCartr 16y ago
" Following his life is pointless because he's poured his life into the software and now they get to keep it. You've stolen his soul like an old sepia tone photo of a Cherokee warrior." He's conflating life with soul, and ego with both. I think his logic error occurs right there.
- nailer 16y ago
  For me, my soul, if it exists, is in what I create.
vessenes 16y ago
I was stunned to read that this guy wishes he were more famous, and that the purpose of said fame would be to get him out of coding interviews, especially after his first paragraph made it sound like he really was happy being nerdy. Hacking a x0xb0x (did I spell that right?) sounds pretty cool. Only after googling around for a bit did I learn what Zed is 'famous' for, as he refers to it later in his essay. Only after reading the whole essay did I learn he thinks programmers are second class citizens. This just seems silly to me; if you want to be famous, go do something that captures hearts and minds, (and have a good press team.) Or, get really rich, (and have a good press team.) Or, get a job in the media, (and have a good press team.) To me, his essay reads like he wants respect, and thinks it will come with fame. I feel sad for him; this probably won't work for him, just like it doesn't work for anyone else.
- thetrumanshow 16y ago
  Proving yourself at a new company is a huge pain point. No matter how good you are, you always go through the slow process of earning rights in order to get some freedom to work autonomously within the framework and procedures of the company. That the OP wants to avoid this pain is understandable. It's probably just not realistic.
  - vessenes 16y ago
    But this is true for senior executives on down to office admin staff. Even a hotshot CEO should be closely watched by the board until he/she has earned trust and proven an ability to execute, lead and inspire. Wanting out of that cycle seems juvenile to me.
AaronM 16y ago
Who's Zed Shaw?
- rimantas 16y ago
  Whose motorcycle is this? It's a chopper, baby. Whose chopper is this? It's Zed's. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
- abyssknight 16y ago
  Creator of the Mongrel web server that is used for Ruby web apps. Also, the creator of Lamson, the email framework for Python and several other projects. He has a reputation for speaking his mind, regardless of how you may feel about it. Personally, that gives him some serious marks in my book; saying what you mean, _and_ executing on it is an admirable trait. I'm not trying to be an apologist here, but he's accomplished far more than I have on a good week. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zed_Shaw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zed_Shaw
  - AaronM 16y ago
    I was trying to be sarcastic there. Guess it didn't work
    - abyssknight 16y ago
      You didn't use a SarcMark (tm)! Apologies for the misunderstanding. Hopefully the information helps others who read the post and were confused.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    I'm not trying to be an apologist here, but he's accomplished far more than I have on a good week. I don't know if you were going for a backhanded compliment there, but it sure seems like one ;-)
    - abyssknight 16y ago
      I wasn't. I really do respect Zed and his contributions.
kwamenum86 16y ago
"name 4 people on the core team" Name four people on the core team at Facebook. This is ironic seeing as the author is in part famous for being a terrific programmer.
js2 16y ago
Yep, just a system administrator Well then. Nice to know Zed looks down his nose at operations.
- logic 16y ago
  I was going to mention something along these lines; there seems to be a fixation on titles in his rant, possibly as a function of his argument that programmers don't get a lot of respect. That position doesn't gain much traction with me, when he pooh-pooh's the idea of someone offering him a mere systems administration position with such disdain. I've self-identified for years as "something resembling" a systems administrator, but I've never been a glorified button-pusher, which is what rants like this would suggest. I think there's a good deal of confusion on the part of some programmers as to the value a good systems administrator/architect/integrator brings to the table, probably because (as with programmers) there's so few of them (but plenty of bad or mediocre candidates). I certainly don't equate the role (beyond a certain career level, anyway) with operations; they're just as critical a part of the development process as anyone else involved in building a product. (Some of us are actually passable programmers, too. ;-)
- fragmede 16y ago
  I hate it when people call me a programmer, I'm a *developer*; I don't *do* IT. I have better things to do than re-install Windows all day. ...is the title of the next rant I expect to read from Zed.
  - nailer 16y ago
    What's wrong with wanting to make stuff rather than work around other people's buggy software?
    - fragmede 16y ago
      IT and programmers do more than "work around other people's buggy software" all day long.
microcentury 16y ago
Wikipedia seems to think his fame is not quite as clear-cut as the man himself sees it: This article may not meet the notability guideline for biographies. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  If he's a famous anything, he's a famous blogger, not a famous programmer.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    At least Mongrel should be enough to make the man known for his code, come on. Give credit where credit is due.
pixelbath 16y ago
"Famous" is also relative. I'm a programmer, and I'd never heard of him or any of the projects he mentioned. If you go down any particular niche, I guess everyone's famous to somebody.
dminor 16y ago
> Yep, just a system administrator. Still. There Are No Famous Sysadmins ;)
- copper 16y ago
  Well, there /is/ the BOFH :) http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/
popschedule 16y ago
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs
- rodion_89 16y ago
  im not sure why this got downvoted. jobs, gates, zuck, brin, page, all of those guys are (are at least were) productive programmers and now have celebrity status.
  - daniel-cussen 16y ago
    Jobs never coded, to my knowledge.
    - rodion_89 16y ago
      did a little research and you are right, my bad!
chopsueyar 16y ago
Ada Lovelace?
dawgr 16y ago
What? I have a poster of Mark Pilgrim on my wall.
anamax 16y ago
Haiping Zhao, the lead on Facebook's PHP compile-to-C++ project, is in Fast Company's "100 Most Creative 2010" list. http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2010/16/haiping-zhao http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2010/16/haiping-zhao
deleted 16y ago
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jlcgull 16y ago
..just as there are no famous scientists anymore. Seriously, how many of you can remember the names of Nobel prize winners after the 1960s? Fame is almost as fickle as Luck and in many ways more so. In our day and time, being recognized by our peers is fame enough. Aspiring to be famous well beyond your chosen discipline requires more than genius. The right moment in time. A moment right not just for you but for your entire field. A moment that captures the imagination of people who have nothing to do with your work, but can still feel its impact. And sometimes, even that is not enough. Case in point: How many of you know the name of the person who discovered/invented/designed Viagra? :-)
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Also: outside of chess fans, who the hell would recognize Anand? He's the world's best at something, and he'd probably be able to walk down any street in America unnoticed. What does Zed expect?
dasil003 16y ago
Zed's thesis is flawed. He set out to be famous--ostensibly because he didn't get enough respect in Ruby-land. It's not clear what his goal was, but now he's jumping to the conclusion that fame doesn't bypass bureaucratic red tape. However Zed wasn't satisfied with his small notoriety, and instead chose to accelerate it by deliberately becoming a flaming asshole writing vitriolic rants full of personal attacks. I enjoyed Zed's rants, and I thought they were fairly insightful. I certainly never interpreted them as being completely out of line, or that Zed was a total asshole. He explicitly stated that he was testing the theory of being an internet blowhard to get attention. Fine. But the problem is now he's famous for being a blowhard. He went from being moderately famous (and misunderstood) among the Ruby elite, to being widely famous for writing snarky articles. Well, that's obviously not going to get you past any technical interviews. Also, he decided to burn his bridges in the Ruby community, where I guarantee you he could have gotten plenty of jobs without an interview before. Nowadays, as someone who does a lot of hiring, I can tell you that I would think twice before hiring Zed for fear of what kind of drama he would bring to the team. That fear may be totally unfounded--I don't know him personally--but where before I knew Zed as "the guy who made Rails deployment viable", now I know him as "the guy who thinks he's god's gift to programming and hates a lot of shit." Zed hasn't discovered anything about programmer fame, he just learned that internet-famous is worthless.
- earl 16y ago
  Sadly, no. " Also, he decided to burn his bridges in the Ruby community, where I guarantee you he could have gotten plenty of jobs without an interview before." I think Zed made it pretty clear in the discussion around the "Rails is a ghetto" article that he did not, in fact, get any jobs period. My understanding is that the article was the outcome of his frustration at not reaping any rewards, particularly financial ones, for contributing a pretty important piece of technology to the rails stack.
castis 16y ago
I don't think this is necessarily true. Who, involved in RoR, doesn't know about _why. It may not be his real name but many a person still knows about his existence. I honestly don't think he was going for fame though.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Eccentricity often leads to fame, even if it wasn't intentional. People like a freak show (No negative connotation intended, but he was certainly strange). For example, the only thing I really know about Howie Mandell is his OCD about germs, but that's more than I know about most celebrities.
wdewind 16y ago
"The famous programmers aren't really famous for programming anymore, but instead because they created some business or non-profit. Their code can't stand on its own as awesome, it has to be paired with some non-code fame formation and then people can grok their concept." Anyone read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age? There is a scene where they are discussing tech innovation and someone says there are always three parts, the money, the tech and the artist. Money finances the tech, and the artist humanizes the tech. You're the tech (drummer/bassist? linebacker?) and you're envious of the artist (lead singer? quarter back?). Edit: and the reason he's not really famous is because none of his consumer facing products are GREAT. (I wont debate if they are good or very good or whatever, but outside of his technical work he really isn't GREAT).
nerme 16y ago
Wow, so weird... I'm constantly having my friends and family give me astonished looks when they see what I can do with a computer! I get tons of recognition! I do a good amount of web work for free... for friend's bands, small businesses... for people that I know and love who don't have a lot of money... ... and they love it! They get this look in their eyes like I'm some sort of magician! It's awesome. :)
mkramlich 16y ago
Zed is to now as Eric S. Raymond was to the 90's
- nailer 16y ago
  ESR got people to understand that GPL/BSD/etc apps were real software with real licenses they needed to respect, rather than Public Domain Shit From The Internet. Also: Zed's made a bunch of innovative stuff (I use his mailing list app) that shits all over Fetchmail (which is a single hack for a limited problem).
joshu 16y ago
I got recognized in an airport on a city I've never been to just this week. There are degrees.
jallmann 16y ago
There is no question Zed is a talented hacker, but it is obvious he's still bitter after his confrontational departure from the Ruby world. Which, IIRC, was partly precipitated by the fact he felt he didn't get enough recognition for his work on Mongrel. See the license terms at the end of this post: http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1273859940.html http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1273859940.html
dsc 16y ago
I'll do my best to spread this message in my mind and in others. What we do is art, it always has been. Say it: I'm with the awesome!!!
siculars 16y ago
There should be an Academy Awards or Tony's or Grammys for programming. Perhaps Github and Bitbucket and Google Code can get together, select the core contributors to the most 'watched'/downloaded programs, allow those people to vote for/select other coders/programmers/contributors who should be allowed ballots and allow them to vote for people in different categories for awards. If entertainers can merit an awards ceremony, surely code slingers and algorithm designers can as well.
eranki 16y ago
i puked a little after reading this
whatwhatwhat 16y ago
Zuck isn't a celebrity? Gates? Jobs? This article is finnicky
etherael 16y ago
Why would you want to be famous? I could think of little more inconvenient than complete strangers thinking that they know / understand me in some way or identify with my life or work. This could be emblematic of my general misanthropy but I'm perfectly happy to be the guy behind the curtain. I'll take the money and maybe the power, chasing fame is the milieu of the inherently insecure. Coding is one of the most empowering things a modern human can do; not waiting around for other people to make something for you, but to get the making done yourself.
earl 16y ago
I read the article differently than most of you. I think Zed is still grumpy that contributing a big piece (if not irreplaceable, but unarguably useful) of the rails stack didn't lead to more recognition and, more importantly, the type of recognition that's useful when it's time to pay the rent. Hence his rails is a ghetto post -- I read it as something like, "This rails shit has worked out well for DHH but a bunch of other people have contributed and we haven't gotten shit. This sucks." This post is an elaboration -- having written a bunch of big projects that are freely available for anyone who wants to to review the code, Zed still has to answer the usual weeder questions. It's kind of insulting, frankly. And from his perspective, his contributions to open source and the community at large haven't done that much for him. I think this is part of a general problem in programming that a blog author I follow pointed out and another poster in this thread mentioned: open source has worked out well for eg Larry Wall or Linus or DHH, etc. But there are a lot of people that contribute -- maybe not as main authors, but who eg make sure all your rails db gems work with new revs of the databases and contribute lots of little pieces -- but who don't get enough out of it to financially justify the contribution. See the creator of Clojure essentially begging for donations on his website in order to continue development. Sometimes, it comes down to the simple fact that open source contributions might be fun or useful or intellectually gratifying, but they don't pay the bills. The industry as a whole, IMO, needs more ways to channel money to the masses of OS contributors who aren't famous and aren't paid to do it, but who make lots of contributions. links I mentioned: http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/commercial-grails-plugins/ http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/commercial-grails-plu... and http://www.anyware.co.uk/2005/2009/12/11/do-we-need-a-commercial-market-for-grails-plugins/ http://www.anyware.co.uk/2005/2009/12/11/do-we-need-a-commer...

303 points by suraj 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

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jarin 16y ago

It's a good point that programmers only become famous among non-programmers because of non-code reasons, but the same applies to specialists in almost any technical field (except for maybe physics and math).

bad_user 16y ago
> It's a good point that programmers only become famous among programmers because of non-code reasons There, fixed that for you.
- btmorex 16y ago
  Actually, a lot of programmers are famous for what they've created (code reasons). Think Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, etc. To be honest, Zed Shaw seems to be the exception since he's almost certainly more well known for blogging than any code that he's written.
  - lelele 16y ago
    > Actually, a lot of programmers are famous for what they've created (code reasons). Think Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, etc. Not at all: "Let's try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. [...] Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up." Can you name 4 people on Linux, Perl, etc. core teams? I'd bet you can't. Or do we think that Torvalds, Wall, etc. wrote the software they are famous for on their own? That's what Zed is talking about.
    - btmorex 16y ago
      I was responding to the poster I responded to, not Zed's post. Specifically, I think most famous programmers (at least among other programmers) are famous for what they coded. That said, I can actually name 4 core contributers to Linux although I'm not sure what the significance of that might be (Linus, Ted T'so, David Miller, Andrew Morton).
    - nailer 16y ago
      Linus, Chris Mason (who's doing BtrFS), Ulrich Drepper (because he's really angry all the time), and uh, that British guy who's number 2. Damnit, you're right.
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    All of those guys are famous for leading a project not the code they have written for those projects.
    - plinkplonk 16y ago
      "All of those guys are famous for leading a project not the code they have written for those projects." Well duh, what made them leaders of these projects in the first place?
      - stonemetal 16y ago
        People skills? I didn't get into Linux until much latter but from what I understand Linux as written by Linus wasn't that great. It was submissions and work by people better than himself that made Linux what it is today. His ability to code may have grown since then but his super wonder coding powers aren't what got Linux off the ground.
        plinkplonk 16y ago
        "People skills?" classic Office Space scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti53kjHsAas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti53kjHsAas
acangiano 16y ago
Including physics and math. With very few exceptions, you only know about scientists when they step outside of their specialized fields and make an effort to popularize their discipline to the general public.
arethuza 16y ago
The only exception I can think to this is 19th century engineer Brunel - he came 2nd in the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel By way of comparison, TBL was 99th.
Psyonic 16y ago
It's somewhat similar to how Malcolm Gladwell gets all the credit for popularizing ideas discovered/researched by other people (10,000 hours, etc). Fame takes work, just like everything else.

deleted 16y ago

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mtoledo 16y ago

"I still have to do programmer interviews like everyone else. No matter how much code I put out, I still have to solve stupid puzzles about coconuts and manholes. No matter how many web servers or email frameworks or database servers or chat servers or assemblers I write I still have to prove I can code. No matter how many copies of my software get deployed I still have to prove I can make reliable software." I still think that's an isolated fact though, and most software shops would offer Zed a job without asking him 'What is a pointer?' questions if he was, for instance, being interviewed by some rubyist (given the notoriety of mongrel). Maybe as he says, I'm wrong. But it could also be just like the guy that offered Ninh Bui a job where 'the candidate must have some experience with Phusion Passenger' (Ninh is one of the creators of Passenger). Some employers just mess up, and having offered Zed a sysadmin job might just have been that, an isolated fact. Now, I would risk on saying that famous programmers could be made more of 'web presence' and 'open source code' than commercial code. Like, Zed's famous for mongrel and his other open source works (lamson, etc), but I'd say that, in my opinion, he's also famous because of his blog and being a prolific writer and, at the same time, quite controversial. Curiously, he's working on a very cool project commercially, Dropbox (very cool in my opinion anyway), but I don't think that has anything to do with how famous he is, even though, in my opinion, that might be the skill that's most relevant for me, as an employer, to know if I wanted to hire him (as most software shops are making apps, and not email frameworks or web servers). So maybe, just like the first step on being famous is having lots of blog readers and open source projects (rather than having made a great contribution to a commercial product), the second step is getting funding, being to parties, etc. (and I just don't notice that because I'm not famous, or because I'm not on SF)

mike-cardwell 16y ago

I'd prefer to write an application which made me wealthy, than an application which made me famous. Wealth is a useful thing to have, fame is more of an annoyance surely...?

jgrahamc 16y ago
I dunno, fame can be useful. Just imagine all the groupies that came after the publication of The Geek Atlas.
- dugmartin 16y ago
  I really don't want to image what those groupies would be like.
Aetius 16y ago
Fame is wealth. You're talking about money.

ErrantX 16y ago

Interesting post from Zed there. It's even gone so far that people demand that we use the BSD license (or any license) that doesn't require credit for using your work. Other programmers don't want to have to put your name in a credits section of their applications. Counter opinion (I realise this is only a subset of Zeds point, which I do agree has some useful points)? The reason many of us like to see libraries, frameworks and support structure (as opposed to software which has an end use) licensed under BSD or similar is less because we actively desire to remove attribution.. but because we like to have control over our own code licensing choices. Generally programmers are pretty good about credit. More importantly the GPL does not force you to mention anything in the credits... at all... you can just leave all the references in the code - and in many cases people just won't read that. So I don't buy this argument much at all. (side point: I maintain a couple of FOSS/Open Source projects and love the idea of stuff I find interesting being used in all sorts of ways. I couldn't really care less about whether someone makes $100 Million using it in their app. In fact I do care about that; firstly I care positively about the fact that I helped them with their success. Secondly I kick myself that it wasn't something I thought of doing. Doh! I prefer to trust that someone will use my code ethically; by which I mean a) tell other people about the cool piece of code X that they are using and b) contribute back to us. But I personally don't like the idea of forcing that behavior :P Although; it's understandable why people do use the GPL for non-software code). You know; on a related note I think the section before the above quote was interesting. And he has something of a point - that we don't think enough about the people making useful code for us. I don't think we are stealing their soul :) but there is definitely a lack of communication (even when the GPL is in use). tl;dr - I don't buy the idea that certain licenses address the problem of programmer fame.

icefox 16y ago
Everyone knows that BSD requires you give them credit. Right? Right? I hope people are fulfilling the full requirement of the copyright and not just #1 "2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed by the <organization>." For example in safari click Help/Acknowledgments

hackermom 16y ago

John Carmack is famous, kinda.

nihilocrat 16y ago
On an indirectly related note, it helps if people hear your voice or see your picture. I find this podcast really interesting, because you hear stories from people who are otherwise just another name on the credits: http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-podcast/ http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-podcast/
Tycho 16y ago
Does Shigeru Miyamoto program?
- hackermom 16y ago
  To my knowledge, he hasn't ever written a line of code, but if he did he would've been an excellent example. Bill Gates is also an interesting example - he is known to pretty much everyone for a number of reasons, among those, probably the least, but still, for the versions of BASIC he wrote.
gnoupi 16y ago
Probably because he worked on things which were entertaining, and not "tools" to people, simply. You can find plenty of famous people in the video game industry, recognized for their work. But you can be a wonderful tool programmer, make wonderful databases, webservers, and else... Ultimately, those are only tools. And people don't have especially respect or excitement for tools, they just use them.
- earcar 16y ago
  I think we are getting to (what I think is) the point: You will be recognized only if your work excites your users so much.
- NickPollard 16y ago
  That's definitely a factor, but he's still remembered. It would have been easy for the programming to have been ignored and Carmack to have been overshadowed by Romero, but that didn't happen. Amongst game programmers, we certainly pay more attention to who writes the code, not just who designs the game or draws the art. Most gamers are more likely to know of Cliff Bleszinski than Tim Sweeney, but programmers are more likely to know of Sweeney.

deleted 16y ago

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plinkplonk 16y ago

"Let's try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. Maybe it's Rails or Python or something. Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up. I can't do that for anything I use. Alright, let's say you can do that. You know a myriad of things about the people who make your tools, but can you honestly say you know as much about them as you do about the tools they made you? Be honest with yourself and really look at how much you know about the people behind your gear as you do about the gear itself." This is very bizarre. Isn't this true for all tools/man made artifacts we use? I have no idea who exactly designed my car, my guitar , my cellphone, or even the apartment I live in. And when I do know their names I certainly don't know them better than I do my tools. Why should I want to? "I still have to do programmer interviews like everyone else. No matter how much code I put out, I still have to solve stupid puzzles about coconuts and manholes. No matter how many web servers or email frameworks or database servers or chat servers or assemblers I write I still have to prove I can code. No matter how many copies of my software get deployed I still have to prove I can make reliable software." I wouldn't want to comment on what Zed's personal experience is , but I know many programmers who wouldn't have to "prove that they can code". "Fame" sees to correlate inversely with having to jump through hoops. I doubt if anyone really wants to test Linus (or Carmack or DHH or any other "famous" programmer) for "ability to code". Outside the MegaCorp, and especially in startups, a reputation for Open Source contributions helps you avoid stupid questions/tests etc, at least in my limited experience. It is often the undistinguished guy with the undistinguished cv that has to go through the technical nitpick interview. I think this experience may be somewhat unique to Zed. No harm in that of course. Just pointing out that is far from universal. Just my perception, but Zed seems to get weirder with every post he writes. I don't mean that he is crazy or anything, just that the logic in his posts seems increasingly frayed.

lelele 16y ago
OTOH, many people think that every cool innovation from Apple comes straight out from Steve Jobs' brain.
- sovande 16y ago
  Maybe not, but it goes through Steve's brain and stop there if he does not like it, and that has served Apple well.

weavejester 16y ago

Wait a moment. Aside from a few exceptions, most product design is unattributed. Can you name four people who worked on the mobile phone you use? Or indeed any appliance you use? Of the programmers and engineers I do know about, I don't know about them because I use the product, but because there's something interesting or unusual about the person.

varjag 16y ago
Noone designs mobile phones or appliances in their free time.
- weavejester 16y ago
  Uh... so what? Are you saying people can only be famous for work they do in their free time?
  - varjag 16y ago
    I'm not saying that and you know it. If someone uses fruits of your passion for free, it would be nice to get an acknowledgement for that, wouldn't you agree?
    - weavejester 16y ago
      "I'm not saying that and you know it." I had no idea what you were saying. Your point wasn't very clear. "If someone uses fruits of your passion for free, it would be nice to get an acknowledgement for that, wouldn't you agree?" Certainly, but acknowledgements don't make you famous.
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      But you're asking for things to work differently there than everywhere else. Humans are creatures of habit, and a product is a product.

l0nwlf 16y ago

"Maybe it's Rails or Python or something. Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up." Wrong. I use python and I do know the name of at least 20 core devs. May be because I hang at #python-dev or follow them at twitter, but I do know. As a matter of fact if I love any project I'll know the core devs. Sorry Zed, you lost me there on that part or else I was loving your article.

apgwoz 16y ago
You're certainly an exception, not the rule. In my immediate circle of python programmers, most of them would name Guido, Beazley and maybe on a good day Alex Martelli. I have to agree with Zed on that point.
- bockris 16y ago
  I don't read python-dev and I could name 7 core Python devs without even thinking. (Guido van Rossum, Alex Martelli, Raymond Hettinger, Martin van Loweis, Jeremy Hilton, Georg Brandl, Fredrik Lundh) (I'm really bummed that David Beazley didn't come to mind right away. Sorry David)

jgrahamc 16y ago

But there is Google. And plenty of people have Googled me and I've been told in job interviews that the interviewer had downloaded code I'd written and read it.

silkodyssey 16y ago

If Microsoft Word were written by a single programmer that programmer would have been famous!

giardini 16y ago
Most of Microsoft Word was written by one programmer, the late Willoughby Whigginton, formerly of Microsoft. "Will", as his friends knew him, despaired and committed suicide after the 8,234th time an unwitting stranger greeted him yet again with the expression "Word®, Dude!".
- silkodyssey 16y ago
  Well the point I was trying to make was that people become famous when they can be linked to something that a lot of people care about. We see this in the entertainment industry where it's easy to associate a blockbuster film with the stars or directors of the film. This is not typically the case in the software industry where the Blockbuster software so to speak are produced by Companies and not lone programmers. That is to say the company is the face of the software. I used Microsoft Word (maybe I should have used Office) because it's an example of a software application where the company that makes it is well known and I thought if it were possible for one person to create an application with as large an impact as Microsoft Office has had in the world then surely that person would be remembered. One notable exception to the rule I think is Linus Torvalds. He still remains the face of linux although what linux is today is due to contributions from a large number of people.
  - basugasubaku 16y ago
    Raymond Chen tells a story that Notepad won some industry award in the late 90s, but no one at Microsoft could remember who the original author was: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/02/9915989.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/02/99159... And follow-up post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/17/9923309.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/17/99233...
16y ago

edw519 16y ago

If you want to be famous, go be an entertainer, athlete, or politician. If you want to be a programmer, check your ego at the door. The two biggest roadblocks to success in programming are incompetence and attitude. BigEgo = BadAttitude. I measure my success not in fame, but in the value gained by those who use my software, and the value gained by those they serve, and so on, and so on. I don't know them and they don't know me, but I'd like to think the world's a better place because of all the ones and zeroes I've arranged. They are the stars and that's good enough for me.

awt 16y ago
Doesn't everyone have an ego? Isn't it really hard to check it at the door? I think students of Buddhism have been trying to figure out how to do this for centuries. I don't think it's as simple as checking it at the door.
- tom_ilsinszki 16y ago
  Checking your ego (against reality) and getting rid of it completely are 2 different things.
  - brlewis 16y ago
    "Reality" is the key word here. The more programming you do, the more you'll know your limitations.
- timr 16y ago
  "Doesn't everyone have an ego? Isn't it really hard to check it at the door?" My thoughts exactly. The parent comment is the sort of "advice" that is easy to dispense and makes everyone feel good, but is fundamentally useless. These platitudes are the honeypot comments of online forums -- everyone votes for them because they "agree", but they might as well be voting up a picture of a kitten hanging from a tree branch. It's comforting to think that we're somehow above the base human need for recognition, but not very close to the truth. For example, why is it okay for entertainers, actors and politicians to pursue fame, while programmers must toil in selfless obscurity? Are we supposed to be martyrs? Also, not for nothing, but when the guy with the top comment score on HN -- the guy who wore a t-shirt bearing his HN login name at Startup School -- tells you to abandon your ego, well...I'm no english major, but there's a certain situational irony there.

d4nt 16y ago

I can't name the architect for the office building I'm sitting in. Or the designer of my (distinctly average) car. Having said that, I know that Tim Berners Lee created the Web, Jon Resig built jQuery and James Dyson designed my vacuum cleaner. I don't think creating something "you use all day" should qualify you for being famous. Doing something new and very innovative sometimes does though.

bennysaurus 16y ago
Linus Torvolds as well - There's a number of reasonably famous programmers out there, and they're often known for revolutionising the areas of industry as opposed to their celebrity lifestyles. Not sure what the writer is on about here really.
rythie 16y ago
Are those the people that really created the products you use today though? Tim Berners Lee may have created the web, but he created it without fonts tags, images, layout and so on. The web exists because of the millions of people who put a lot of work into it including Amazon, Altavista, Google, Yahoo, Netscape and so on. jQuery lists 21 people in it's team and 8 past members: http://jquery.org/team http://jquery.org/team Did you buy the very first Dyson vacuum cleaner? (the DC01 in 1993) or one designed by one of it's 1500+ staff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_%28company%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_%28company%29 Most products are built by a lot of people but just have a famous leader (who may or may not have made the very first version that you probably never saw).
- vessenes 16y ago
  In the interest of securing our oral history about the web, Tim Berners Lee had layout and images. And built-in click-to-edit. http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser1.html http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser1.html
  - rythie 16y ago
    In 1991 it looked like this: http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/T... In 1992 Erwise, ViollawWW and Lynx were created and Mosaic in 1993, Netscape in 1994. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web) That picture was from 1993, though I'd concede I got a few inaccuracies in my comment, however Tim Berners Lee, didn't create the whole web by himself, even in the very early days there were others creating it too, that have now been forgotten.

albertsun 16y ago

For some reason, this very strongly reminded me of this scene from Entourage where Johnny Drama has to audition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC57rdYMM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC57rdYMM "Still I have to sing for my supper." It's like Zed Shaw is really angry and yelling at the hiring manager "Do you know who I am?!"

drats 16y ago
I read a story on HN a while ago about a guy who was connected to a powerful politician who was getting hassled at airport security, who didn't care about this name-dropping, and his ego got the better of him and he just flipped and started screaming "Do you know who I am?!" at them over and over. The response of the security guys was to casually call over the radio to the drag-you-away-for-a-free-prostate-exam TSA hardmen "I think you better come down here, there is a guy who doesn't know who he is".
nailer 16y ago
To be honest, if it was for a Rails or Python gig, that would be a reasonable question. Zed has a lot of projects, people active in either community should know who he is. As they should, say, Jesse Noller, or Joe Stump, or other well known programmers.

mahmud 16y ago

Useless rant that doesn't add anything to my life, or probably yours.

mechanical_fish 16y ago

Well, this is the entire point of art, right? You are building an artifact for people to interact with. Sometimes the artifact reveals aspects of the creator's personality, but generally that is done subtly. You're trying to suggest and seduce, not overwhelm and assault. (Even the arts which aggressively push the author's persona - think: a lot of hip-hop, and a lot of standup comedy - are about selling persona, not person. Performers play characters. Even when they are playing themselves.)

Psyonic 16y ago
Reminds of Hunter Thompson. He eventually got to the point where when he gave a speech or public appearance, he didn't know if the people wanted Hunter Thompson or "Hunter Thompson," and I think he began to have some difficulty distinguishing the two.

ahoyhere 16y ago

On the other hand, I've written Rails tutorials for newbies and people constantly think I'm a Ruby badass and ask absolutely no further questions. Perceived character, reputation, and the way you make a person feel has more to do with whether they innately assume you are good, than sheer fame. It's so easy to choose the wrong variable when you're trying to figure out a (social) system.

jasonkester 16y ago

Wow, I've never come away from a HN article embarrassed for the author before. I had expected from the title to see an article explaining why there don't tend to be a lot of famous computer programmers. I was completely unprepared to read a complaint from a guy who thinks he should be famous, yet isn't treated with the deference he thinks he deserves. Yikes! I had to stop after 3 paragraphs.

kiba 16y ago
You must be reading a different essay. I interpret that the author's fame doesn't help the author at all and that fame is a pointless asset.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Indeed, that would be the case if the author were indeed famous. But he's not. Fame is defined by people knowing who you are, yet this guy's issue is that nobody knows who he is. QED, he's not famous.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    In that case, most celebrities arguably aren't famous. All people know is a fiction and nobody knows who they are.
- dagw 16y ago
  It could simply be that the author isn't actually anywhere near as famous as he wants to think he is.
- JustAGeek 16y ago
  That's how I understood it, too.
- thetrumanshow 16y ago
  I have always thought that programming fame might be a ticket-punch that you get and then no one questions your abilities from then on. I guess it isn't so. Thanks to the OP for treading this road and reporting back. Maybe this is also true for web-famous entrepreneurs? Anyone ever start a somewhat well-known company that folded and you had to go work for someone else? Did you still have to earn respect from scratch at the new company? Now I think I understand what I've wanted isn't possible. There is no way to prove yourself once-and-for-all. The only solution is to solve the money problem once-and-for-all, and then you never have to bother with proving yourself at a new company again.

alttab 16y ago

Fame is a distraction. 'Nuff said. As far as coders becoming factory workers - I think this is true, depending on the route you take. Do you just write code? Or do you also manage people, make great presentations, or define business models? Just because you can write code, its hard to think about something invisible, and no one else in your business can do it doesn't mean you're a rock star. This requires a programmer to walk around thinking they can do everyone else's job but not vice versa. If there was only one thing about (us) programmers I hate the most it is our collective attitude. Our holier-than-thou more-technical-and-logical-than you bull shit. Then we complain about accolades, accomplishment, social standing. We are what we make ourselves. What we do does not define who we are or what we think we are entitled to. I agree it takes a lot of distinguishing to get noticed as a programmer but I would say that's true whatever you do in life.

jonsmock 16y ago
Wow, I really needed to hear this right now. Thanks.

10ren 16y ago

There are famous programmers, but Zed's right that they don't become famous because of their coding ability. I'd say they become famous because of impact. And I'm thinking of the really famous (to us) coders here: Thompson, Richie, Fred Brooks, Dijkstra, Knuth, Larry Wall and so on. These people had an impact for market reasons, not for their code in itself: a need; an idea for a tool or product; and a benefit of it that met that need (not saying the need is first chronologically). In some cases, that "product" was something they wrote about programming, not their code at all. Programming: unimportant. Meeting needs: important.

lelele 16y ago

I think this post nails down what I think is a recurring issue with us techies. We concentrate too much on what we do, and too little in being known for what we do, which, according to Chris Lytle, is the third reason of success: "The third secret of success is that you have to be known for what you know. Other people have to know you know what you're doing. When other people know you know what you're doing, they come to you for help and advice, not just for your low price." What about the former two reasons of success? Here they are: "The first secret of success is that you have to know what you're doing. There are a lot of people who fail simply because they don't study their industry. They don't go to seminars. They don't read. And they fail. [...] The second secret of success is that you have to know you know what you're doing. Success is a process, and repeating successful behaviors over and over again is key. But you have to know what is working so you can repeat what's working." (from The Accidental Salesperson, a book about selling I highly recommend)

neilk 16y ago

The very definition of a product is an artifact that doesn't require a human relationship. If you need to be in touch with the people that made it or maintain it, that's called consulting. (You may want to be in closer contact, for instance, to shape the direction of the Linux kernel or something. But you don't need to have such a relationship to use Linux.) Excellence in product design means anonymity for the people who made it.

pcestrada 16y ago

In my experience, programmers can attain a certain amount of fame at the local level.You can become well-known for being the author of a key piece of software that your company uses. Unfortunately, it just means people know who to talk to when their is a bug or a feature request.

neilk 16y ago

I think Zed should know by now that the tech interview is also a personality screen. It's helpful to know if you're hiring someone who rolls his eyes when asked to do something he thinks trivial. Or who wants to be treated like a rockstar. Also, it's a way of getting team buy-in, even when hiring a lead. Whatever the team rituals are to establish respect, the new guy has to pass them. If it's dumb questions about missionaries and cannibals, that's lame, but so be it.

stcredzero 16y ago
In short, ritual justifies lameness?
- ekanes 16y ago
  No, he's saying lame rituals help you avoid hiring prima donnas.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    It may also scare away those who do not like lameness. I once had an interview for a Smalltalk position, where, after the 3rd question, I asked, "are all of these questions from the well known list of Smalltalk interview questions? I already know those." I suspect that this lost me the position, which I think is strange, but fortunate. The lameness of an interview is often a good indicator of how bureaucratized or politicized the corporate environment is.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      > It may also scare away those who do not like lameness. This is precisely the point ekanes was trying to make. It's not lameness, but perceived lameness. If you perceive the company as lame, you would not be a good fit anyway. But rest assured that, if I were the interviewer, your recognition of a known list of interview questions would not cost you the position. And my interviews are neither lame, nor only about coding skills.
  - 16y ago

shin_lao 16y ago

You should care about people using and enjoying what you build. I don't really care whether my users know my birthday or what my favourite dessert is. Actually, I'm pretty happy they don't know anything about me. The author of this article needs an attitude adjustment.

enntwo 16y ago

If you use something enough, and truly want to understand it, then I assume you know all about some programmers, and that enough others are like you that these people can be considered famous. It also seems laughable to think that those programmers who are considered famous do not benefit from it in the industry. Off the top of my head: John Resig Matz Steve Yegges Shawn Hargreaves _why And assuming you have been to one conference, or dug a little bit deeper, I am sure you know much of the core team and library teams around a technology too. I am not sure what qualifies someone as famous, but I would be surprised if these people did not qualify given the right fields. Just because you don't know about them doesnt mean thousands of other people don't.

bugschivers 16y ago

I personally actually find myself agreeing with pretty much all of this article. The point is, is that it is not about fame, that is tangential to point, which is that programmers don't celebrate other programmers, that they don't value other programmer's work. This is the only industry I know of, where people give away so much for so little, and they don't ask anything in return, because none of you seem able to appreciate the effort involved in your own or anyone else's work. I don't think that it is absurd to know the name of the person who created the tool you use EVERY day, when they are from your OWN industry, only other programmers have the capacity to appreciate the craftsmanship and work involved. That is the saddest thing about the programming industry, that you all can’t see how much difference you can make, you give a project attention, hey, maybe you even donate some money and express some gratitude that someone went out of their way to work in their spare time, to give you something that you don’t even have to pay for and you all reap dividends. Maybe it’s because this industry is so young, but something has to give, or you WILL be relegated to the positions of machinery, actual real people have to sit there and code this stuff, they give up evenings and weekends, they sacrifice time with family and friends, non-programmers don’t get this, YOU do. This industry needs to learn how to appreciate and stop attacking those who put their creations out there, the one man band who spends every weekend keeping a ruby gem up to date matters, the handful of guys coding frameworks and platforms and libraries and everything else matter, because you guys use their work, regularly. They should get your attention, not Jobs who has his billions to play with, or Linus, who has his enormous Linux universe to maintain, or any of the guys famous by association with big companies, products or projects. The little guys, who keep the whole shebang ticking over, who work endlessly, in the shadows of your attention, creating awesome, cool things for you play with, tools for you to work with and games for you to relax with.

bugschivers 16y ago
Reading more recent comments, I see a common theme, the "I don't code for glory", this isn't a rant about fame, it is a rant about recognition, from within the industry. I worked as a dog groomer years ago and we had competitions and awards and yes there were even famous dog groomers. Nobody codes for glory, lol, but recognition is a different thing, I read once "people will crawl over broken glass for recognition", which is funny because it seems that programmers run away from recognition. The things you write do not need to be ground-breaking, game-changing or revolutionary to garner recognition, you deserve recognition for putting the time in, for creating something that people rely on, that works. Somewhere there is a disconnect, everybody DESERVES recognition, it is not about ego, or fame, or fortunes, or groupies, it is about connecting with someone within your own field and saying "hey, you did a good job, I appreciate it".

abrahamsen 16y ago

Jeffrey Law, Richard Kenner, Mark Michell, Ian Taylor. That wasn't hard. I apologize for any misspelling, as I went by memory. On the other hand, I don't know the names of any startup founders more recent (or less successful) than facebook. I believe Hacker News attract a certain non-typical brand of programmers, if they are more likely to know about "VCs and term sheets" than about who made their tools. Of course programmers are rarely famous (for programming) outside their profession. That is a fate programming share with just all but a select few professions.

ploer 16y ago
Yeah, that definitely struck me as the odd bit in the article -- being jealous of the "fame" that startup founders get sure seems like a pretty specialized breed of envy!

tetha 16y ago

It is interesting to see that someone arrived at a similar conclusion as me. However, I went a totally different way of arriving there. By now, programmers kind of feel like pioneers and/or drainers. Think about this for a second. Did Ruby On Rails enable you to venture into new lands, because you are able to program your web application more efficiently? I think so. Does RoR make your daily programmer life easier overall? I think so, too. Thus, someone ventured into a place and built roads and paths for people to come there and to live comfortably. However, did anyone really remember the pioneers in germans marshes, in america? Does anyone see the drainers maintaining the life support systems in the cities? No. Does anyone remember the first person to write a web framework, to write a next generation language, or maintaining libraries which easen your daily life? No. I think this is a striking similarity.

z92 16y ago

"[Being famous]... makes it harder because now for some bizarre reason people think my fame means I can't code." So true. When I hear of any famous programmer, I think the same.

agentultra 16y ago

I'm not convinced that Zed was suggesting that programmers should be famous for what they do (or that anyone should). The idea of programmers being like rock-stars is wholly preposterous. It's much harder for us to convince anyone that we're cool. I highly doubt I will ever get a coterie of groupies and sycophants to feed me drugs and sleep with me because I have a high wpm and can write a 2000-line report script without a single bug or syntax error. What I do think he is suggesting is that industry should give us recognition for what we do. I honestly don't know who designed the car my taxi driver drove me to work in this morning. However, I'm pretty sure that if the design of the car was a significant feat in engineering then the engineer who designed it probably has a shiny little trophy above their desk. And if that person ever went looking for a job I doubt their interviewer would waste time asking them questions to ascertain whether they're an engineer. This person would have the industry recognition to open certain doors implicitly. There is some industry recognition, sure. Amongst us programmers. I just finished reading "Coders at Work" not too long ago. There are names in there that I'd expect most geeks would know and be familiar with. It was a very inspiring read. Now as an experiment, ask your boss if they know what any of those people are recognized for. I know I'm probably begging the question. The point I'm trying to make is that the people we work for that make so much money off of what we build... they don't know who these people are. They don't take time to familiarize themselves with these sorts of things. I think industry awards, trade publications, and the like would go a long way to bridge that gap. It has worked for pretty much every other industry. Why is programming such an exception?

CapitalistCartr 16y ago

" Following his life is pointless because he's poured his life into the software and now they get to keep it. You've stolen his soul like an old sepia tone photo of a Cherokee warrior." He's conflating life with soul, and ego with both. I think his logic error occurs right there.

nailer 16y ago
For me, my soul, if it exists, is in what I create.

vessenes 16y ago

I was stunned to read that this guy wishes he were more famous, and that the purpose of said fame would be to get him out of coding interviews, especially after his first paragraph made it sound like he really was happy being nerdy. Hacking a x0xb0x (did I spell that right?) sounds pretty cool. Only after googling around for a bit did I learn what Zed is 'famous' for, as he refers to it later in his essay. Only after reading the whole essay did I learn he thinks programmers are second class citizens. This just seems silly to me; if you want to be famous, go do something that captures hearts and minds, (and have a good press team.) Or, get really rich, (and have a good press team.) Or, get a job in the media, (and have a good press team.) To me, his essay reads like he wants respect, and thinks it will come with fame. I feel sad for him; this probably won't work for him, just like it doesn't work for anyone else.

thetrumanshow 16y ago
Proving yourself at a new company is a huge pain point. No matter how good you are, you always go through the slow process of earning rights in order to get some freedom to work autonomously within the framework and procedures of the company. That the OP wants to avoid this pain is understandable. It's probably just not realistic.
- vessenes 16y ago
  But this is true for senior executives on down to office admin staff. Even a hotshot CEO should be closely watched by the board until he/she has earned trust and proven an ability to execute, lead and inspire. Wanting out of that cycle seems juvenile to me.

AaronM 16y ago

Who's Zed Shaw?

rimantas 16y ago
Whose motorcycle is this? It's a chopper, baby. Whose chopper is this? It's Zed's. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
abyssknight 16y ago
Creator of the Mongrel web server that is used for Ruby web apps. Also, the creator of Lamson, the email framework for Python and several other projects. He has a reputation for speaking his mind, regardless of how you may feel about it. Personally, that gives him some serious marks in my book; saying what you mean, _and_ executing on it is an admirable trait. I'm not trying to be an apologist here, but he's accomplished far more than I have on a good week. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zed_Shaw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zed_Shaw
- AaronM 16y ago
  I was trying to be sarcastic there. Guess it didn't work
  - abyssknight 16y ago
    You didn't use a SarcMark (tm)! Apologies for the misunderstanding. Hopefully the information helps others who read the post and were confused.
- petercooper 16y ago
  I'm not trying to be an apologist here, but he's accomplished far more than I have on a good week. I don't know if you were going for a backhanded compliment there, but it sure seems like one ;-)
  - abyssknight 16y ago
    I wasn't. I really do respect Zed and his contributions.

kwamenum86 16y ago

"name 4 people on the core team" Name four people on the core team at Facebook. This is ironic seeing as the author is in part famous for being a terrific programmer.

js2 16y ago

Yep, just a system administrator Well then. Nice to know Zed looks down his nose at operations.

logic 16y ago
I was going to mention something along these lines; there seems to be a fixation on titles in his rant, possibly as a function of his argument that programmers don't get a lot of respect. That position doesn't gain much traction with me, when he pooh-pooh's the idea of someone offering him a mere systems administration position with such disdain. I've self-identified for years as "something resembling" a systems administrator, but I've never been a glorified button-pusher, which is what rants like this would suggest. I think there's a good deal of confusion on the part of some programmers as to the value a good systems administrator/architect/integrator brings to the table, probably because (as with programmers) there's so few of them (but plenty of bad or mediocre candidates). I certainly don't equate the role (beyond a certain career level, anyway) with operations; they're just as critical a part of the development process as anyone else involved in building a product. (Some of us are actually passable programmers, too. ;-)
fragmede 16y ago
I hate it when people call me a programmer, I'm a *developer*; I don't *do* IT. I have better things to do than re-install Windows all day. ...is the title of the next rant I expect to read from Zed.
- nailer 16y ago
  What's wrong with wanting to make stuff rather than work around other people's buggy software?
  - fragmede 16y ago
    IT and programmers do more than "work around other people's buggy software" all day long.

microcentury 16y ago

Wikipedia seems to think his fame is not quite as clear-cut as the man himself sees it: This article may not meet the notability guideline for biographies. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic.

abstractbill 16y ago
If he's a famous anything, he's a famous blogger, not a famous programmer.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  At least Mongrel should be enough to make the man known for his code, come on. Give credit where credit is due.

pixelbath 16y ago

"Famous" is also relative. I'm a programmer, and I'd never heard of him or any of the projects he mentioned. If you go down any particular niche, I guess everyone's famous to somebody.

dminor 16y ago

> Yep, just a system administrator. Still. There Are No Famous Sysadmins ;)

copper 16y ago
Well, there /is/ the BOFH :) http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

popschedule 16y ago

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs

rodion_89 16y ago
im not sure why this got downvoted. jobs, gates, zuck, brin, page, all of those guys are (are at least were) productive programmers and now have celebrity status.
- daniel-cussen 16y ago
  Jobs never coded, to my knowledge.
  - rodion_89 16y ago
    did a little research and you are right, my bad!

chopsueyar 16y ago

Ada Lovelace?

dawgr 16y ago

What? I have a poster of Mark Pilgrim on my wall.

anamax 16y ago

Haiping Zhao, the lead on Facebook's PHP compile-to-C++ project, is in Fast Company's "100 Most Creative 2010" list. http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2010/16/haiping-zhao http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2010/16/haiping-zhao

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jlcgull 16y ago

..just as there are no famous scientists anymore. Seriously, how many of you can remember the names of Nobel prize winners after the 1960s? Fame is almost as fickle as Luck and in many ways more so. In our day and time, being recognized by our peers is fame enough. Aspiring to be famous well beyond your chosen discipline requires more than genius. The right moment in time. A moment right not just for you but for your entire field. A moment that captures the imagination of people who have nothing to do with your work, but can still feel its impact. And sometimes, even that is not enough. Case in point: How many of you know the name of the person who discovered/invented/designed Viagra? :-)

Psyonic 16y ago
Also: outside of chess fans, who the hell would recognize Anand? He's the world's best at something, and he'd probably be able to walk down any street in America unnoticed. What does Zed expect?

dasil003 16y ago

Zed's thesis is flawed. He set out to be famous--ostensibly because he didn't get enough respect in Ruby-land. It's not clear what his goal was, but now he's jumping to the conclusion that fame doesn't bypass bureaucratic red tape. However Zed wasn't satisfied with his small notoriety, and instead chose to accelerate it by deliberately becoming a flaming asshole writing vitriolic rants full of personal attacks. I enjoyed Zed's rants, and I thought they were fairly insightful. I certainly never interpreted them as being completely out of line, or that Zed was a total asshole. He explicitly stated that he was testing the theory of being an internet blowhard to get attention. Fine. But the problem is now he's famous for being a blowhard. He went from being moderately famous (and misunderstood) among the Ruby elite, to being widely famous for writing snarky articles. Well, that's obviously not going to get you past any technical interviews. Also, he decided to burn his bridges in the Ruby community, where I guarantee you he could have gotten plenty of jobs without an interview before. Nowadays, as someone who does a lot of hiring, I can tell you that I would think twice before hiring Zed for fear of what kind of drama he would bring to the team. That fear may be totally unfounded--I don't know him personally--but where before I knew Zed as "the guy who made Rails deployment viable", now I know him as "the guy who thinks he's god's gift to programming and hates a lot of shit." Zed hasn't discovered anything about programmer fame, he just learned that internet-famous is worthless.

earl 16y ago
Sadly, no. " Also, he decided to burn his bridges in the Ruby community, where I guarantee you he could have gotten plenty of jobs without an interview before." I think Zed made it pretty clear in the discussion around the "Rails is a ghetto" article that he did not, in fact, get any jobs period. My understanding is that the article was the outcome of his frustration at not reaping any rewards, particularly financial ones, for contributing a pretty important piece of technology to the rails stack.

castis 16y ago

I don't think this is necessarily true. Who, involved in RoR, doesn't know about _why. It may not be his real name but many a person still knows about his existence. I honestly don't think he was going for fame though.

Psyonic 16y ago
Eccentricity often leads to fame, even if it wasn't intentional. People like a freak show (No negative connotation intended, but he was certainly strange). For example, the only thing I really know about Howie Mandell is his OCD about germs, but that's more than I know about most celebrities.

wdewind 16y ago

"The famous programmers aren't really famous for programming anymore, but instead because they created some business or non-profit. Their code can't stand on its own as awesome, it has to be paired with some non-code fame formation and then people can grok their concept." Anyone read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age? There is a scene where they are discussing tech innovation and someone says there are always three parts, the money, the tech and the artist. Money finances the tech, and the artist humanizes the tech. You're the tech (drummer/bassist? linebacker?) and you're envious of the artist (lead singer? quarter back?). Edit: and the reason he's not really famous is because none of his consumer facing products are GREAT. (I wont debate if they are good or very good or whatever, but outside of his technical work he really isn't GREAT).

nerme 16y ago

Wow, so weird... I'm constantly having my friends and family give me astonished looks when they see what I can do with a computer! I get tons of recognition! I do a good amount of web work for free... for friend's bands, small businesses... for people that I know and love who don't have a lot of money... ... and they love it! They get this look in their eyes like I'm some sort of magician! It's awesome. :)

mkramlich 16y ago

Zed is to now as Eric S. Raymond was to the 90's

nailer 16y ago
ESR got people to understand that GPL/BSD/etc apps were real software with real licenses they needed to respect, rather than Public Domain Shit From The Internet. Also: Zed's made a bunch of innovative stuff (I use his mailing list app) that shits all over Fetchmail (which is a single hack for a limited problem).

joshu 16y ago

I got recognized in an airport on a city I've never been to just this week. There are degrees.

jallmann 16y ago

There is no question Zed is a talented hacker, but it is obvious he's still bitter after his confrontational departure from the Ruby world. Which, IIRC, was partly precipitated by the fact he felt he didn't get enough recognition for his work on Mongrel. See the license terms at the end of this post: http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1273859940.html http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1273859940.html

dsc 16y ago

I'll do my best to spread this message in my mind and in others. What we do is art, it always has been. Say it: I'm with the awesome!!!

siculars 16y ago

There should be an Academy Awards or Tony's or Grammys for programming. Perhaps Github and Bitbucket and Google Code can get together, select the core contributors to the most 'watched'/downloaded programs, allow those people to vote for/select other coders/programmers/contributors who should be allowed ballots and allow them to vote for people in different categories for awards. If entertainers can merit an awards ceremony, surely code slingers and algorithm designers can as well.

eranki 16y ago

i puked a little after reading this

whatwhatwhat 16y ago

Zuck isn't a celebrity? Gates? Jobs? This article is finnicky

etherael 16y ago

Why would you want to be famous? I could think of little more inconvenient than complete strangers thinking that they know / understand me in some way or identify with my life or work. This could be emblematic of my general misanthropy but I'm perfectly happy to be the guy behind the curtain. I'll take the money and maybe the power, chasing fame is the milieu of the inherently insecure. Coding is one of the most empowering things a modern human can do; not waiting around for other people to make something for you, but to get the making done yourself.

earl 16y ago

I read the article differently than most of you. I think Zed is still grumpy that contributing a big piece (if not irreplaceable, but unarguably useful) of the rails stack didn't lead to more recognition and, more importantly, the type of recognition that's useful when it's time to pay the rent. Hence his rails is a ghetto post -- I read it as something like, "This rails shit has worked out well for DHH but a bunch of other people have contributed and we haven't gotten shit. This sucks." This post is an elaboration -- having written a bunch of big projects that are freely available for anyone who wants to to review the code, Zed still has to answer the usual weeder questions. It's kind of insulting, frankly. And from his perspective, his contributions to open source and the community at large haven't done that much for him. I think this is part of a general problem in programming that a blog author I follow pointed out and another poster in this thread mentioned: open source has worked out well for eg Larry Wall or Linus or DHH, etc. But there are a lot of people that contribute -- maybe not as main authors, but who eg make sure all your rails db gems work with new revs of the databases and contribute lots of little pieces -- but who don't get enough out of it to financially justify the contribution. See the creator of Clojure essentially begging for donations on his website in order to continue development. Sometimes, it comes down to the simple fact that open source contributions might be fun or useful or intellectually gratifying, but they don't pay the bills. The industry as a whole, IMO, needs more ways to channel money to the masses of OS contributors who aren't famous and aren't paid to do it, but who make lots of contributions. links I mentioned: http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/commercial-grails-plugins/ http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/commercial-grails-plu... and http://www.anyware.co.uk/2005/2009/12/11/do-we-need-a-commercial-market-for-grails-plugins/ http://www.anyware.co.uk/2005/2009/12/11/do-we-need-a-commer...