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He is one of 3 people that came to mind immediately reading this post. One of his latest creations, QuickJS, is quite remarkable. The other two I thought of ar

He is one of 3 people that came to mind immediately reading this post. One of his latest creations, QuickJS, is quite remarkable. The other two I thought of are Peter Norton and Linus Torvalds. Fabrice, despite his tremendous contributions to the field, doesn't reach for acclaim and just seems to go his own way. Peter Norton was a genius in his field. His book on Assembly Language was one of my favorites as a youth. Norton tools were impressive for their time. Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. I don't though think that these three people are the highest level masters in the field. I think they are just the ones who have chosen to do things that have high impact and visibility.

mandeepj 6y ago
>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. Ha! Would you consider Musk also as a Lunatic? :-)
- permille42 6y ago
  Musk isn't great enough to deserve such a high title of lunatic. More like arrogant madman.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Perhaps a Marsatic ;D
rramadass 6y ago
>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. What? Linus is one of the most Rational, Direct, No-Nonsense, Get Things Done Leader there is. Whenever i hear some self-appointed "expert" pontificate on Leadership/Management/etc. i always think of what Linus would say/do in that situation. People only think of him as a "Technical Guy" but his Leadership/Management of something so vital, so huge, so distributed, with so many "employees" and with so few resources, so many stakeholders is what is amazing to me. Nobody comes close. You really need to take back the "uncontrolled lunatic" phrase.
- permille42 6y ago
  As an "uncontrolled lunatic" myself, they are rather obvious in the field. I'll agree that many of the things he says are reasonable. An example is his recent defense of long lines and dismissal of the insane "80 characters per line" peeps. What I mean specifically by "uncontrolled lunatic" is that he often ignores convention and current opinion and does and says things that get him into trouble. He also has a temper that he often is bad at controlling. I myself have this issue, and I don't see how one could say he does not have issues in this regard. While it requires some amount of perpendicular thinking to be a master of software, having such an attitude and working with other people in that way will cause too much conflict that is unnecessary. I think what you are missing in my statement is that I consider calling someone an "uncontrolled lunatic" as a sort of compliment. I agree also that he is less of a technical person and more of a manager. His skills lie in herding. On the other hand; Git is a flaming piece of garbage and he is directly responsible for its popularity... so... He did though reasonably tell people he didn't intend for anyone outside of kernel developers to use it. I just wish he corrected its deficiencies. Maybe someday he can apply his "arbitrary character restrictions are silly" logic to Git comments and become less contradictory.
  - rramadass 6y ago
    I have heard these arguments before. You cannot separate Linus' so-called "shortcomings" from how they were instrumental in getting him to what he has delivered and where he is today. Genius cannot be constrained by every single artificial social more and etiquette; we are Humans not Automatons. As long as they do not lead to destruction of product/project/self/others it is merely a character trait which makes the person unique. All successful companies know this and "manage" their most important people accordingly.
    - permille42 6y ago
      I disagree. The notion that "you have to accept the arrogance and obnoxious attitude of high level software engineers because it is inevitable that the type of people who excel at creating software are that way because they don't focus on social skills". Every one of us can work to be more polite and caring of the emotions of others. Especially if you know you suck at it you ought to use effort to be better in that way. Justifying treating others poorly just enables more people being hurt. We should not reward people for this sort of behavior. Turning a blind eye to it because "they are great software engineers" is not right. Your comment treads very much into the "for the greater good" mentality where you can justify anything based on the results. "Unique character trait" my ass. Obnoxious aholes are just that. Obnoxious aholes. They need to fucking stop and be more kind.

mandeepj 6y ago

>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. Ha! Would you consider Musk also as a Lunatic? :-)

permille42 6y ago
Musk isn't great enough to deserve such a high title of lunatic. More like arrogant madman.
Izkata 6y ago
Perhaps a Marsatic ;D

rramadass 6y ago

>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. What? Linus is one of the most Rational, Direct, No-Nonsense, Get Things Done Leader there is. Whenever i hear some self-appointed "expert" pontificate on Leadership/Management/etc. i always think of what Linus would say/do in that situation. People only think of him as a "Technical Guy" but his Leadership/Management of something so vital, so huge, so distributed, with so many "employees" and with so few resources, so many stakeholders is what is amazing to me. Nobody comes close. You really need to take back the "uncontrolled lunatic" phrase.

permille42 6y ago
As an "uncontrolled lunatic" myself, they are rather obvious in the field. I'll agree that many of the things he says are reasonable. An example is his recent defense of long lines and dismissal of the insane "80 characters per line" peeps. What I mean specifically by "uncontrolled lunatic" is that he often ignores convention and current opinion and does and says things that get him into trouble. He also has a temper that he often is bad at controlling. I myself have this issue, and I don't see how one could say he does not have issues in this regard. While it requires some amount of perpendicular thinking to be a master of software, having such an attitude and working with other people in that way will cause too much conflict that is unnecessary. I think what you are missing in my statement is that I consider calling someone an "uncontrolled lunatic" as a sort of compliment. I agree also that he is less of a technical person and more of a manager. His skills lie in herding. On the other hand; Git is a flaming piece of garbage and he is directly responsible for its popularity... so... He did though reasonably tell people he didn't intend for anyone outside of kernel developers to use it. I just wish he corrected its deficiencies. Maybe someday he can apply his "arbitrary character restrictions are silly" logic to Git comments and become less contradictory.
- rramadass 6y ago
  I have heard these arguments before. You cannot separate Linus' so-called "shortcomings" from how they were instrumental in getting him to what he has delivered and where he is today. Genius cannot be constrained by every single artificial social more and etiquette; we are Humans not Automatons. As long as they do not lead to destruction of product/project/self/others it is merely a character trait which makes the person unique. All successful companies know this and "manage" their most important people accordingly.
  - permille42 6y ago
    I disagree. The notion that "you have to accept the arrogance and obnoxious attitude of high level software engineers because it is inevitable that the type of people who excel at creating software are that way because they don't focus on social skills". Every one of us can work to be more polite and caring of the emotions of others. Especially if you know you suck at it you ought to use effort to be better in that way. Justifying treating others poorly just enables more people being hurt. We should not reward people for this sort of behavior. Turning a blind eye to it because "they are great software engineers" is not right. Your comment treads very much into the "for the greater good" mentality where you can justify anything based on the results. "Unique character trait" my ass. Obnoxious aholes are just that. Obnoxious aholes. They need to fucking stop and be more kind.