5 ms·

Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. Ffmpeg, Qemu, Tiny C Compiler ... many others .. and now this!

Macuyiko 6y ago
Agreed. 10 years ago, I could still pretend I'd be able to come close to his productivity if I "just set my mind to it." Today (being older, slower, and having a family), I can only be humble.
- leetrout 6y ago
  I’m really starting to feel the age and competing priorities with family. Makes me really scared about ageism.
  - taf2 6y ago
    Maybe but as the kids get older you the time back and your more efficient with it as a result of those early years... I think at least I’m faster and smarter now then ten years ago... maybe I’m losing my eye sight and my hearing or maybe it’s true :)
    - hakcermani 6y ago
      Touche! i need some more focus too!
    - jfo 6y ago
      What value of “older” do you have in mind? As the parent of a 3 year old, I know that it’s at least older than 3 XD
      - sfifs 6y ago
        Things starts easing up a bit after kids hit first grade around 6 or 7
- chii 6y ago
  Many people don't have the misconception that they can compete athletically at the level of olympics. And yet, somehow, a lot of people mistakenly believe they could perform intellectually at that same high level!
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    I guess a lot of people "could". But realize this is pretty much a full-time commitment for years and years. And even then Sure, let's say 20% of it is genetics, 80% of it is still putting in the work.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    I think you run into the barrier much faster in something like sports because the gap is so easily measurable. E.g. it just takes one 100m sprint to see how slow you are. Whereas with intellectual work it's often hard to assess the gap, not least because the further you are from closing it, the less understanding you'll tend to have of how hard the remaining parts are.
  - mantap 6y ago
    I'm not convinced. Our brains are well know for their plasticity. Our musculoskeletal and circulatory systems: not so much. The brain is capable of rewiring itself after some quite traumatic injuries, of course the people who go through rehabilitation after a traumatic brain injury do so with the focus of someone whose life depends on it. I would suggest that most people reading this are capable of Bellard level productivity, if their life depended on it.
staunch 6y ago
He really has done so much incredible work. I'd love a Fabrice Bellard interview/podcast/tech talk but found none when searching. If anyone has a link, please post it!
- izietto 6y ago
  I guess he's too busy developing great projects
Scarbutt 6y ago
Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. And in Emacs mode.
- bjconlan 6y ago
  His own emacs mode (https://bellard.org/qemacs https://bellard.org/qemacs) I don’t think he uses it anymore but I always found that the best side effect of concise/elegant (minimal) code (or perhaps goals/scope) is generally better performance (I think this is also partly because of a single author understanding a lot more of a ‘product’ than a team) Also wanna throw Mike Pall & Arthur Whitney in there as an honourable mentions (productive gods/100x)
brabel 6y ago
He also wrote JSLinux[1]!! I was just playing with the online shell and it's mind blowing how the browser can now run a fully functioning OS like Linux within it. [1] https://bellard.org/jslinux/ https://bellard.org/jslinux/
- MertsA 6y ago
  And now you can run QuickJS in JSLinux. Yo dawg...

Agreed. 10 years ago, I could still pretend I'd be able to come close to his productivity if I "just set my mind to it." Today (being older, slower, and having a family), I can only be humble.

leetrout 6y ago
I’m really starting to feel the age and competing priorities with family. Makes me really scared about ageism.
- taf2 6y ago
  Maybe but as the kids get older you the time back and your more efficient with it as a result of those early years... I think at least I’m faster and smarter now then ten years ago... maybe I’m losing my eye sight and my hearing or maybe it’s true :)
  - hakcermani 6y ago
    Touche! i need some more focus too!
  - jfo 6y ago
    What value of “older” do you have in mind? As the parent of a 3 year old, I know that it’s at least older than 3 XD
    - sfifs 6y ago
      Things starts easing up a bit after kids hit first grade around 6 or 7
chii 6y ago
Many people don't have the misconception that they can compete athletically at the level of olympics. And yet, somehow, a lot of people mistakenly believe they could perform intellectually at that same high level!
- raverbashing 6y ago
  I guess a lot of people "could". But realize this is pretty much a full-time commitment for years and years. And even then Sure, let's say 20% of it is genetics, 80% of it is still putting in the work.
- vidarh 6y ago
  I think you run into the barrier much faster in something like sports because the gap is so easily measurable. E.g. it just takes one 100m sprint to see how slow you are. Whereas with intellectual work it's often hard to assess the gap, not least because the further you are from closing it, the less understanding you'll tend to have of how hard the remaining parts are.
- mantap 6y ago
  I'm not convinced. Our brains are well know for their plasticity. Our musculoskeletal and circulatory systems: not so much. The brain is capable of rewiring itself after some quite traumatic injuries, of course the people who go through rehabilitation after a traumatic brain injury do so with the focus of someone whose life depends on it. I would suggest that most people reading this are capable of Bellard level productivity, if their life depended on it.

staunch 6y ago

He really has done so much incredible work. I'd love a Fabrice Bellard interview/podcast/tech talk but found none when searching. If anyone has a link, please post it!

izietto 6y ago
I guess he's too busy developing great projects

Scarbutt 6y ago

Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. And in Emacs mode.

bjconlan 6y ago
His own emacs mode (https://bellard.org/qemacs https://bellard.org/qemacs) I don’t think he uses it anymore but I always found that the best side effect of concise/elegant (minimal) code (or perhaps goals/scope) is generally better performance (I think this is also partly because of a single author understanding a lot more of a ‘product’ than a team) Also wanna throw Mike Pall & Arthur Whitney in there as an honourable mentions (productive gods/100x)

brabel 6y ago

He also wrote JSLinux[1]!! I was just playing with the online shell and it's mind blowing how the browser can now run a fully functioning OS like Linux within it. [1] https://bellard.org/jslinux/ https://bellard.org/jslinux/

MertsA 6y ago
And now you can run QuickJS in JSLinux. Yo dawg...