6 ms·

Honestly, who is Steve Yegge? I've only heard of him because articles from his blog are occasionally posted here. His blog doesn't give any biographical details

by hugh3 16y ago

Honestly, who is Steve Yegge? I've only heard of him because articles from his blog are occasionally posted here. His blog doesn't give any biographical details as far as I can tell, and I tried to look him up on wikipedia to see what he's actually done, but he doesn't have an article. Can anyone explain why he's notable (apart from the old "I've heard of him therefore..." argument)? Not being combative, just curious.

btmorex 16y ago
As far as I can tell, he isn't notable outside of blogging (I had no idea who he was either). I can understand why his wikipedia page got deleted. On the other hand, I have no problem with wikipedia including pages on famous bloggers who happen to be programmers. I think wikipedia's biggest strength is having something on just about everything. If I googled "Steve Yegge", it would be nice to have a wikipedia page there with a short blurb on why people know him (blogging about programming presumably).
- tptacek 16y ago
  Wikipedia thinks it's an encyclopedia, not a search-engine aid or a "who's who"-style directory.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Wikipedia thinks it's an encyclopedia, but fairly often, I use it as a Doctor Who episode guide or something.
  - code_duck 16y ago
    Wikipedia is so wrong about that. The whole notion of an encyclopedia is outdated, anyway. The whole internet is the knowledge base, Google is the index.
SMrF 16y ago
He wrote js2 mode, which I love: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Js2Mode http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Js2Mode Other than that, I've heard he writes great blog posts on programming and works at Google.
- JBiserkov 16y ago
  -Wrote Rhino on Rails, a port of Ruby on Rails inside the Google Language fence (JS, C++, Java, Python) -Used to work at Amazon?
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    Is this used by anyone, anywhere?
    - 124816 16y ago
      I don't think it was ever released, was it?
      - Psyonic 16y ago
        Not that I'm aware of. Anyway, my question (not directed to you, but to everyone) is why does everyone bring it up as this great point to his credit, when it was never released or used?
dusklight 16y ago
Hey I can't speak for anyone else, but Yegge made me a MUCH better programmer. His article on "Java is the kingdom of nouns" and various writings explaining why lisp matters and the virtues and pitfalls of static typing/dynamic typing really made me question a lot of implicit assumptions I did not realize I had.
code_duck 16y ago
Oddly, I was just thinking this morning about how people here on this site think Steve Yegge is extremely famous, while I don't really know who he is. His own description is that he was programmer at Amazon who wrote a blog in the evenings while drinking, and the blog became popular.

by hugh3 16y ago

btmorex 16y ago

As far as I can tell, he isn't notable outside of blogging (I had no idea who he was either). I can understand why his wikipedia page got deleted. On the other hand, I have no problem with wikipedia including pages on famous bloggers who happen to be programmers. I think wikipedia's biggest strength is having something on just about everything. If I googled "Steve Yegge", it would be nice to have a wikipedia page there with a short blurb on why people know him (blogging about programming presumably).

tptacek 16y ago
Wikipedia thinks it's an encyclopedia, not a search-engine aid or a "who's who"-style directory.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Wikipedia thinks it's an encyclopedia, but fairly often, I use it as a Doctor Who episode guide or something.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Wikipedia is so wrong about that. The whole notion of an encyclopedia is outdated, anyway. The whole internet is the knowledge base, Google is the index.

SMrF 16y ago

He wrote js2 mode, which I love: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Js2Mode http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Js2Mode Other than that, I've heard he writes great blog posts on programming and works at Google.

JBiserkov 16y ago
-Wrote Rhino on Rails, a port of Ruby on Rails inside the Google Language fence (JS, C++, Java, Python) -Used to work at Amazon?
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Is this used by anyone, anywhere?
  - 124816 16y ago
    I don't think it was ever released, was it?
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      Not that I'm aware of. Anyway, my question (not directed to you, but to everyone) is why does everyone bring it up as this great point to his credit, when it was never released or used?

dusklight 16y ago

Hey I can't speak for anyone else, but Yegge made me a MUCH better programmer. His article on "Java is the kingdom of nouns" and various writings explaining why lisp matters and the virtues and pitfalls of static typing/dynamic typing really made me question a lot of implicit assumptions I did not realize I had.

code_duck 16y ago

Oddly, I was just thinking this morning about how people here on this site think Steve Yegge is extremely famous, while I don't really know who he is. His own description is that he was programmer at Amazon who wrote a blog in the evenings while drinking, and the blog became popular.