5 ms·

I think hero-worship in any field is weird and unhealthy. That said, Bellard is astonishingly talented and prolific and it's hard to look at someone like that a

• slim 5y ago
  Why is hero-worship is unhealthy? I thought it's the contrary
  • user-the-name 5y ago
    Because it decreases self-confidence and initiative. It makes you think of the things that the "hero" does as exceptional and out of your reach, instead of something you could do as well if you put your mind to it properly.
    • zaphirplane 5y ago
      Interestingly enough seeing powerful role models inspired schwarzenegger, bolt martial artists, poets, architects even Tom cruise inspired Air Force pilots
      • opsy2 5y ago
        It seems small, but it's a big distinction between hero worship and role model! 'Hero Worship' is about elevating someone to a categorically higher level. This can lead to thinking you could never be as good, taking everything they say as gospel, defending even their poor opinions, etc. If we -worship- 10x developers, you can maybe better see how with the emphasis on that word things can get pretty toxic pretty quick. For example, I think many would agree HR disputes should not take talent level as an input, but if one of those people isn't even a mortal... --- None of this is necessary to have a role model, or precludes celebrating someone for doing excellent work as is this case.
• foepys 5y ago
  Some people are just very intelligent and can grasp concepts quickly and apply this new knowledge efficiently. To them a person of average intelligence is often like a toddler that is struggling to put the cube into the round hole.
  • logicchains 5y ago
    There are billions of people in the world, over seven thousand people with one-in-a-million intelligence, seven million people with one-in-a-thousand intelligence, but nobody else close to Fabrice Bellard in software output.
• chii 5y ago
  > it's hard to look at someone like that and say he's just a mortal who tries his best to write code, just like everyone else. would anyone look at Usain Bolt and say that he's mortal and just like everyone else? Why is it so difficult to imagine that there are people who are just so much better than you, that you (an average person) can never catch up? Most people have no trouble understanding that they cannot reach the level of Usain Bolt. Why should programming be any different from sprinting in this case?
  • jbjbjbjb 5y ago
    I would say an innate talent for ‘coding’ is a relatively minor factor. What is very rare to see is people showing the level of responsibility and grit to get on by themselves and build something. Also in a business setting it is unheard of for someone to have the opportunity or even be trusted enough to do it not to mention all the other business factors.
    • taneq 5y ago
      Just like Usain Bolt’s physical attributes are a minor factor and it’s his grit and responsibility that makes him so quick?
      • jbjbjbjb 5y ago
        No it is completely different the analogy doesn’t work. Coding isn’t running.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
    • ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      > I would say an innate talent for ‘coding’ is a relatively minor factor I would argue that innate talent is strongly linked to genetics. In the case of coding, I think intelligence plays a large role.
• Cybiote 5y ago
  The trick is that even a tiny difference in ability can lead to a large difference in results as the number of decision steps involved in a task increase. The expert wastes less time in search space. This is a combination of good mental models honed from experience and attention to detail. Something unusual about Bellard is the breadth of his knowledge. There are probably a fair few who can write a fast deterministic low level code optimized neural network library. A decent number who can write an autodiff library but few who can do both. Once that's done, I daresay that's the hard part. Given such a library, implementing an LSTM or transformer model and combining it with Adaptive Modeling/incremental learning of data statistics using a neural network to feed an Arithmetic Coder is something that is within the reach of many more. In summary, a 10x developer is not 10x smarter or 10x more skilled, they just waste less time investigating unproductive paths and are maybe 1% less likely to take wrong turns. This ends up making a huge difference for large complex tasks.
  • pansa2 5y ago
    > Something unusual about Bellard is the breadth of his knowledge. One thing I’ve noticed is that he chooses to apply himself to many different subfields of development, but always using the same technologies e.g. all his work seems to be in either C or JavaScript. I’ve only worked in a couple of subfields but have seriously used at least 7 different languages, plus countless libraries. Compared to Bellard I’ve probably spent (wasted?) a large amount of time trying to choose, and then learn, the “best” tool for each job.
    • ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      To be fair, Bellard has the luxury of doing that because he's generally writing things from near scratch and he's not beholden to other people or outside requirements.
• agumonkey 5y ago
  What surprises me about bellard, beside the excellency, is the breadth. Who could predict his next topic... Surely his intellectual life is diverse