I have no idea who my code style influences are. I don't really think about code that much, any more than most people think of paper plates. I would know a ba

I have no idea who my code style influences are. I don't really think about code that much, any more than most people think of paper plates. I would know a bad one if it's flimsy or dirty, otherwise I don't think of them at all unless they are really exceptional. There are programmers I respect, and take inspiration from, but mote for their architecture, functionality, or documentation, then their code. Come to think of it, I have actually only read a few files of code at most from most of my favorite programmers. RealThunder is one of my favorite programmers in the world. I don't know what he did or how he did it, but he fixed the topological naming issue in FreeCAD, and made it about 5x more practical, and mostly solved one of the key missing things in the whole FOSS ecosystem. He didn't just make a proof of concept or a script you can maybe get to work in an hour, he literally has an AppImage on his GitHub, taking some really algorithms and making true software with them, not just code. He has his issues, but I respect Poettering for how solid, consistent, and comprehensive his recent software is, and how he wasn't afraid to go beyond "init system" and make a real system management daemon. I respect Torvalds because... Linux works. It's an OS. It's good at being an OS. And because he is open to new technologies like Rust. I'm not sure I could name anything specific about the kernel that makes it special, besides the fact that it's not buggy and has all the features you need, but that's a good thing. It just needs to be an OS, with lots of community support and drivers. I respect Van Rossum for the way he curated the feature set of Python, never allowed it to be left behind by changing tech, and really, really, valued practicality. I respect Wim Taymans for making media sane again. There are essentially no major issues with PipeWire aside from compatibility issues due to it being new. GStreamer is admittedly at times a nightmare to work with, but that's just because media is hard. For a huge class of problems I wouldn't really think of using anything else. Fabrice Bellard is wonderful because he does world class things, any one of which would be noteworthy, in multiple domains, usually involving some pretty amazing low-level algorithmic work. And then there's the stuff that's hard to attribute to any one person as far as I know, but still greatly influences me. Freedesktop provides an absolutely amazing amount of convenience to the user with very little programmer effort to interact with it. NetworkManager brings all your network needs together in one place, along with Firewalld that brings all your firewalling together the same way. Debian is, along with red hat, near synonymous with Linux for me, and they rarely stray from or fail at the mission of providing a rock solid OS where packages don't break. I wish SyncThing would expand just slightly and offer plugin support, but nonetheless they are the shining example of how self-hosting anything should be. Linux Mint is unrivalled, as far as I can tell, at being what Windows always should have been.