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Jeff Dean is arguably one of the top 3 most productive and influential industry programmers of all time.
by perfmode 9y ago
Jeff Dean is arguably one of the top 3 most productive and influential industry programmers of all time.
- aje403 9y agoHe certainly has the reputation. Are there any stories of people who've worked with him in person floating around (sans Chuck Norris jokes)? Would be curious to read. Have seen stories of Carmack and guys like that have cemented the legend.
- emtel 9y agoA former co-worker of mine was Jeff Dean's "mentor" at (I think) mysimon.com, where Jeff worked before google. He said that when Jeff started, he showed him how to check out code, and then basically just listened to Jeff typing furiously for about 6 weeks. Then, he gave a presentation to the eng team that was basically like "Ok I sped up the system by 20x, here's how." Then he quit and went to google.
- kolpa 9y agoJeff Dean was at MySimon for 6 months: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jeff-dean-2#section-jobs https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jeff-dean-2#section-jobs Looks as though he got curious about the startup world after DEC, and MySimon had nothing to suit his ambitions.
- emtel 9y agoAh, ok, 6 months then.
- enitihas 9y agoJust curious, who do you think are the other two?
- kirillseva 9y agoI'd definitely put John Carmack on the list, probably as #1. And I think antirez should be somewhere up there as well
- tejasmanohar 9y agoWhile antirez is a great programmer, I think his accomplishments are far from that of Dean or Carmack. There are many notable folks in his playing field.
- kirillseva 9y agoI disagree. For example, homebrew isn't the best package manager. But its vast reach is a feat of its own. Same with redis. Is it the best DB ever? Probably not. But it is definitely used quite a bit in the industry and a lot of people get acquainted with nosql databases and k/v stores through redis. Engineering accomplishments without proper marketing, education and adoption are quite useless, for better or for worse
- hknd 9y agoSanjay Ghemawat is another one.
- enitihas 9y agoGhemawat should definitely be one. I sometimes wonder why Dean is teated on a wholly different level than Ghemawat. If you look at their works, almost all of them involve both. Probably someone with more knowledge can shed some light here.
- ebikelaw 9y agoI think I've heard "Jeff and Sanjay" as often as or more often than I've heard them regarded separately. Who invented protobuf? Jeff and Sanjay. Etc.
- bhaavan 9y agoIn a leadership role, it will be difficult for him to contribute technically IMO. I wish he remained a programmer, and continued using his abilities to solve greater things.
- antisocial 9y agoI am sure all the people he will be leading are passionate, he may not have to deal with the run of the mill org issues. Being promoted gives him more influence/power to implement his vision.
- antisocial 9y agoBTW, he is Jeff Dean, he can be the AI chief and hands on technical at the same time :) May be they promoted him because he was bored at work.
- aje403 9y agoNa, it makes perfect sense, especially if the person isn't socially retarded or unfit for management. They're able to contribute meaningfully to broad architectural designs to have a larger impact then hacking away at a single project, which also imparts their thought process to a larger group of developers who may end up in his shoes one day. Ideally someone in his shoes can recognize top talent and ideas as well, and clear organization barriers away for individuals and groups to achieve large things as well. Besides, people with his ability and experience should know everything that is going on to influence what the company chooses to do with its money and time over a political bonehead.
- dpflan 9y agoHave you read Coders at Work [1]? There are 15 computer scientists interviewed (listed below). Perhaps it's time for another edition with Dean, Carmack, and others. Coders at Work Interviewee List: - Jamie Zawinski - Brad Fitzpatrick - Douglas Crockford - Brendan Eich - Joshua Bloch - Joe Armstrong - Simon Peyton Jones - Peter Norvig - Guy Steele - Dan Ingalls - L Peter Deutsch - Ken Thompson - Fran Allen - Bernie Cosell - Donald Knuth [1] http://codersatwork.com/ http://codersatwork.com/
- mundanevoice 9y agoBrad is amazing. He has contributed so much back to the OSS and written excellent code. A true hero, also the youngest of the lot in the book.
- jasonwatkinspdx 9y agoI've pretty immense respect for Brad. He's very patient and empathetic in how he interacts with people on email lists, etc.
- mundanevoice 9y agoI would consider myself a success if I have even half of this empathy and patience. :)
- auvi 9y agointeresting to note that Jamie Zawinski, Peter Norvig, Guy Steele and L Peter Deutsch are all lispers
- tsm 9y agoSo is Peter Seibel, the interviewer…
- vram22 9y agoAnd Zawinski [1] achieved what he did with only a high school "degree" (in terms of formal education), according to what Norvig said here: http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
- sah2ed 9y agoWould Dave Cutler make your list ;)? https://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-computer-industry-luminaries-salute-dave-cutlers-five-decade-long-quest-for-quality/ https://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-c...
- gaius 9y agoSuch a shame then that that talent is focused on making people click ads
- pebers 9y agoLike Bigtable, MapReduce and Tensorflow haven't had any impact outside advertising...
- jacquesm 9y agoThat's true, but if not for advertising they wouldn't exist. Advertising is like pornography: lots of technology finds its first application or even invention in either.
- antisocial 9y agoThey open source all their excellent work. Rent seeking cable providers are trying to take advantage of the net neutrality repeal to make people click ads.
- jonknee 9y agoIt could be worse, a couple generations ago the best minds were used to find new ways to kill people.
- notdonspaulding 9y agoThat seems like an uncharitable reading of history. Even if technically correct, this interpretation of the effects of nuclear weaponry on the number of humans killed in war seems wildly off-base. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace In the short-term anyway (by which I mean 1945 to the present day), the advent of nuclear weaponry seems to have decreased the number of humans killed. And that was certainly the most reasonable rationale for the use of nuclear warheads to end WW2.
- jonknee 9y agoYou're discounting the non-zero chance that nuclear weapons will end the world as we know it. You can't say that about clicking ads.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]