6 ms·

This comment brings me a lot of sadness and pain. I know and respect Fabrice from in person interactions. He is exactly who he claims to be. Maybe an interesti

by sounds 5y ago

This comment brings me a lot of sadness and pain. I know and respect Fabrice from in person interactions. He is exactly who he claims to be. Maybe an interesting question, instead of this current line of discussion, is to find out what led to his successes? Could it be replicated?

sekao 5y ago
Cálmate, my friend...pretty sure the comment was a light hearted joke.
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  I'm reminded of the joke that Nicolas Bourbaki quit writing math books when they found out that Serge Lang was one person.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Anyway we know Elena Ferrante is two people.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tomrod 5y ago
How can it be funded? I would love to work more on open source.
- TuringTest 5y ago
  If it solves a specific need of a large company, they may decide to fund the developer to maintain it and tweak it for their purposes. If it only works for small companies or end users, maybe it can be dual-licensed or mixed-licensed, offering the basic software for free but selling closed-source add-ons for expanded functionalities.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I saw Fabrice comment here during the log4j debacle complaining about how hard it is to get funding. I'd say the answer is that it mostly doesn't, and that there is a very small paid team working on it.
gavinhoward 5y ago
> I know and respect Fabrice from in person interactions. He is exactly who he claims to be. Maybe an interesting question, instead of this current line of discussion, is to find out what led to his successes? While I think the GP was a joke, you ask an interesting question that I tried to answer 12 days ago on this very site. [1] tl;dr: I'm not fast, but I'm getting faster because I understand my entire codebase. I think that may be a good portion of Mr. Bellard's success, or if it is not, it may be the best way for mere mortals to emulate his success. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29533412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29533412
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> I understand my entire codebase. FFmpeg doesn't have any dependencies does it? You are probably onto something.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
I think it's a joke dude!
marcodiego 5y ago
Intrigued by this exact question a long time ago, I took a look at some of Bellard's earlier projects. I studied a bit of a partial implementation of an OpenGL software renderer written by him. I even found a bug I could fix! Actually his first projects were not all that advanced, they are things "normal people" could do. I think key lies down to 3 points: - Start simple: do not try advanced projects at first, start slow, plan, don't write the first function before you know what will be the last. Use this for many small but increasingly complex projects to gain experience. - Understand what you do: most of the most notorious Bellard's projects are complex but based on many simple smaller moving parts and based on simple, understandable concepts. If the first point is respected, this one comes naturally. - Be regular: do what you need/want but do it regularly. If you look at what Bellard does in a single day, it doesn't seem that different from what most people can do in a single day. But he does it with incredible regularity. I think these are points that most people can follow. You may not get to his level, but you will certainly be a solid developer. If you're lucky to start projects that the "right people" need, you can see what separates devs like Torvalds or Bellard from other equally solid developers: they developed projects that attracted strong contributors. Think about the guy writing SerenityOS: he's probably as solid as one can be; nevertheless, there's a very small probability SerenityOS will ever be as commonplace as ffmpeg. And that doesn't mean it is not fantastic, neither SerenityOS or its developer. Now, in Bellard's case there's just on more special thing: he is a gifted mathematician. That certainly helps being a good developer and planner too, but turning into a mathematician of his level also takes another level of discipline.
- ganzuul 5y ago
  > don't write the first function before you know what will be the last This is some seriously deep meta-heuristics. Very insightful. Thank you.
  - jeffreygoesto 5y ago
    Do we need a "Think before code" manifesto? This is a true counter-standpoint to all the agile cargo cult that has been developed in the last years... Not to be taken as 100% dogma, like everything...
bitwize 5y ago
1) A profound interest in programming for its own sake. 2) More money than God. Also helps: zero fucks to give about maintaining the damn thing.
xxs 5y ago
I guess it was a joke about the 10x developer(s)

by sounds 5y ago

sekao 5y ago

Cálmate, my friend...pretty sure the comment was a light hearted joke.

throwaway81523 5y ago
I'm reminded of the joke that Nicolas Bourbaki quit writing math books when they found out that Serge Lang was one person.
ncmncm 5y ago
Anyway we know Elena Ferrante is two people.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tomrod 5y ago

How can it be funded? I would love to work more on open source.

TuringTest 5y ago
If it solves a specific need of a large company, they may decide to fund the developer to maintain it and tweak it for their purposes. If it only works for small companies or end users, maybe it can be dual-licensed or mixed-licensed, offering the basic software for free but selling closed-source add-ons for expanded functionalities.
colinmhayes 5y ago
I saw Fabrice comment here during the log4j debacle complaining about how hard it is to get funding. I'd say the answer is that it mostly doesn't, and that there is a very small paid team working on it.

gavinhoward 5y ago

> I know and respect Fabrice from in person interactions. He is exactly who he claims to be. Maybe an interesting question, instead of this current line of discussion, is to find out what led to his successes? While I think the GP was a joke, you ask an interesting question that I tried to answer 12 days ago on this very site. [1] tl;dr: I'm not fast, but I'm getting faster because I understand my entire codebase. I think that may be a good portion of Mr. Bellard's success, or if it is not, it may be the best way for mere mortals to emulate his success. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29533412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29533412

phkahler 5y ago
>> I understand my entire codebase. FFmpeg doesn't have any dependencies does it? You are probably onto something.

hungryforcodes 5y ago

I think it's a joke dude!

marcodiego 5y ago

Intrigued by this exact question a long time ago, I took a look at some of Bellard's earlier projects. I studied a bit of a partial implementation of an OpenGL software renderer written by him. I even found a bug I could fix! Actually his first projects were not all that advanced, they are things "normal people" could do. I think key lies down to 3 points: - Start simple: do not try advanced projects at first, start slow, plan, don't write the first function before you know what will be the last. Use this for many small but increasingly complex projects to gain experience. - Understand what you do: most of the most notorious Bellard's projects are complex but based on many simple smaller moving parts and based on simple, understandable concepts. If the first point is respected, this one comes naturally. - Be regular: do what you need/want but do it regularly. If you look at what Bellard does in a single day, it doesn't seem that different from what most people can do in a single day. But he does it with incredible regularity. I think these are points that most people can follow. You may not get to his level, but you will certainly be a solid developer. If you're lucky to start projects that the "right people" need, you can see what separates devs like Torvalds or Bellard from other equally solid developers: they developed projects that attracted strong contributors. Think about the guy writing SerenityOS: he's probably as solid as one can be; nevertheless, there's a very small probability SerenityOS will ever be as commonplace as ffmpeg. And that doesn't mean it is not fantastic, neither SerenityOS or its developer. Now, in Bellard's case there's just on more special thing: he is a gifted mathematician. That certainly helps being a good developer and planner too, but turning into a mathematician of his level also takes another level of discipline.

ganzuul 5y ago
> don't write the first function before you know what will be the last This is some seriously deep meta-heuristics. Very insightful. Thank you.
- jeffreygoesto 5y ago
  Do we need a "Think before code" manifesto? This is a true counter-standpoint to all the agile cargo cult that has been developed in the last years... Not to be taken as 100% dogma, like everything...

bitwize 5y ago

1) A profound interest in programming for its own sake. 2) More money than God. Also helps: zero fucks to give about maintaining the damn thing.

xxs 5y ago

I guess it was a joke about the 10x developer(s)