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To me this kind of stuff is fan junk news. I get that even hackers need celebrities, but front page of HN is a little extreme for a thing like this without cont

To me this kind of stuff is fan junk news. I get that even hackers need celebrities, but front page of HN is a little extreme for a thing like this without context. If there was more context like, John C has re-written half of BSD, then we're talking - but this is very celebrity grocery list to me.

rvz 6y ago
I'd bet everyone on this thread will be grabbing their cheerleading squad and their pom-poms everywhere if John Carmack visited them in person. They won't be able to contain themselves and start bursting into tears of joy. 'Extreme' maybe an understatement here but it seems like HNers here love seeing the second coming of King Midas when everything he touches turns into gold.
- jquast 6y ago
  I’m sorry you feel this way, maybe if you could try contributing more positively to FOSS in some way and receive some accolades for yourself, you would not feel so spiteful about the attention Carmack receives. I think you will find Carmack has contributed more to the hacker ecosystem than anyone else if you just take a very shallow peek. I would suggest to start by reading the source code to Doom, it is surprisingly approachable and educational in several fields of math, geometry, data structures, and computer science. There are even books to help you understand it, heck, there are a dozen or more books about Id software and John Carmack, so there are many authors and readers who feel very differently from you, maybe you could consider the reason. There are many things in our field that would have happened eventually, no matter who did it, but much of Carmack’s contributions really would not have happened without him, he really is in a league of his own. It’s really amazing to me that you feel so negatively towards people who have endearment for one of the hacker community’s greatest contributors. I can only guess that you might be very unhappy, for that I’m very sorry and I hope it turns around for you very soon.
dkarl 6y ago
I get what you're saying, but I think it's great for people to see that an old-school hard core programmer puts effort into improving documentation and names. I've worked with a lot of people who think programmers can and should be too good to invest time and thought into changes like that. Also to see that he would be so tactful about asking if the changes are welcome, even though he is who he is and knows it. I like to think there are people in their twenties or teens or even younger browsing HN and subconsciously absorbing the fact that this is how a programming god behaves.
JohnBooty 6y ago
So many celebrities are celebrities for banal, superficial reasons. Calling this a "very celebrity grocery list" story is a disservice. Carmack's one of the most accomplished programmers in history in terms of innovation, skill, and longevity. His words and opinions also carry a fair bit of weight, even today. His contributions and technology choices matter in a way that a celebrity's grocery list do not. If there's an injustice here, it's the fact that there are many Carmack-level coders out there, toiling away in relative obscurity, who don't have their contributions trumpeted in this way.

rvz 6y ago

I'd bet everyone on this thread will be grabbing their cheerleading squad and their pom-poms everywhere if John Carmack visited them in person. They won't be able to contain themselves and start bursting into tears of joy. 'Extreme' maybe an understatement here but it seems like HNers here love seeing the second coming of King Midas when everything he touches turns into gold.

jquast 6y ago
I’m sorry you feel this way, maybe if you could try contributing more positively to FOSS in some way and receive some accolades for yourself, you would not feel so spiteful about the attention Carmack receives. I think you will find Carmack has contributed more to the hacker ecosystem than anyone else if you just take a very shallow peek. I would suggest to start by reading the source code to Doom, it is surprisingly approachable and educational in several fields of math, geometry, data structures, and computer science. There are even books to help you understand it, heck, there are a dozen or more books about Id software and John Carmack, so there are many authors and readers who feel very differently from you, maybe you could consider the reason. There are many things in our field that would have happened eventually, no matter who did it, but much of Carmack’s contributions really would not have happened without him, he really is in a league of his own. It’s really amazing to me that you feel so negatively towards people who have endearment for one of the hacker community’s greatest contributors. I can only guess that you might be very unhappy, for that I’m very sorry and I hope it turns around for you very soon.

dkarl 6y ago

I get what you're saying, but I think it's great for people to see that an old-school hard core programmer puts effort into improving documentation and names. I've worked with a lot of people who think programmers can and should be too good to invest time and thought into changes like that. Also to see that he would be so tactful about asking if the changes are welcome, even though he is who he is and knows it. I like to think there are people in their twenties or teens or even younger browsing HN and subconsciously absorbing the fact that this is how a programming god behaves.

JohnBooty 6y ago

So many celebrities are celebrities for banal, superficial reasons. Calling this a "very celebrity grocery list" story is a disservice. Carmack's one of the most accomplished programmers in history in terms of innovation, skill, and longevity. His words and opinions also carry a fair bit of weight, even today. His contributions and technology choices matter in a way that a celebrity's grocery list do not. If there's an injustice here, it's the fact that there are many Carmack-level coders out there, toiling away in relative obscurity, who don't have their contributions trumpeted in this way.