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I don’t think Fabrice Bellard or Donald Knuth aimed to be the best programmers in the world.

owenpalmer 4y ago
To be honest, I didn't even set out to become a developer. I just loved solving problems. My question is more on the side of where I should invest my time.
- peter_d_sherman 4y ago
  What is the largest problem in your life right now? I'd start there! Even if this problem is non-technical/non-programming in nature -- by examining it in depth, it might very well lead into a set of related sub-problems where one or more of the sub-problems are technical/programming in nature! Simple example from my own life: One "life goal" of "How do I make more money?" which is non-technical, non-programming in nature -- at one point in my life led to write software as a side-hustle. This then (writing the software) became a sub-problem which was technical/programming in nature. Start with your own life problems, technical or not. Break them down into sub-problems. One or more sub-problems will lead you down one or more technical/programming paths -- which in turn may lead you to more sub-sub problems! If you love problem solving -- if you use this method -- you'll always have challenging and interesting problems in your life -- you'll never be bored! That's because in solving one non-trivial problem -- you'll often encounter many more cross-domain sub-problems! When you encounter them, you'll need to learn more domain knowledge -- which is great motivation to study interesting and sometimes quite esoteric topics that you haven't studied before! In other words, you'll keep learning, keep solving problems, and keep finding new problems to solve! As far as how to best invest your time -- well, you'll figure it out!
  - owenpalmer 4y ago
    Thank you! I'll be sure to apply this.
peter_d_sherman 4y ago
I have to give "mad props" to Fabrice Bellard and Donald Knuth -- but don't forget about Brian Kernighan, Dennis Richie, Niklaus Wirth, Charles Simonyi, Raymond Chen, Mike "Assume Nothing" Abrash, Jeff Dean, Edsger Dijkstra, Andrew Tanenbaum, Linus Torvalds, Anders Hejlsberg, Joel Spolsky, and, more recently Eelco Dolstra -- and all of the hundreds of thousands of unnamed unsung committers to GitHub and other open-source repositories... And of course Charles Babbage, George Boole, Alan Turing, John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert, Claude Shannon, John Von Neuman, Grace Hopper -- and the other early pioneers of computation...
- GianFabien 4y ago
  In my reading of interviews, biographies of many of the foregoing, I don't recall a single one having the goal of being "the best". Most certainly not in the sense that we talk about sports stars. In my understanding, each and every person on your list was passionate about solving some problem, extending their knowledge, sharing their learning with others. The recognition followed their contributions.

To be honest, I didn't even set out to become a developer. I just loved solving problems. My question is more on the side of where I should invest my time.

peter_d_sherman 4y ago
What is the largest problem in your life right now? I'd start there! Even if this problem is non-technical/non-programming in nature -- by examining it in depth, it might very well lead into a set of related sub-problems where one or more of the sub-problems are technical/programming in nature! Simple example from my own life: One "life goal" of "How do I make more money?" which is non-technical, non-programming in nature -- at one point in my life led to write software as a side-hustle. This then (writing the software) became a sub-problem which was technical/programming in nature. Start with your own life problems, technical or not. Break them down into sub-problems. One or more sub-problems will lead you down one or more technical/programming paths -- which in turn may lead you to more sub-sub problems! If you love problem solving -- if you use this method -- you'll always have challenging and interesting problems in your life -- you'll never be bored! That's because in solving one non-trivial problem -- you'll often encounter many more cross-domain sub-problems! When you encounter them, you'll need to learn more domain knowledge -- which is great motivation to study interesting and sometimes quite esoteric topics that you haven't studied before! In other words, you'll keep learning, keep solving problems, and keep finding new problems to solve! As far as how to best invest your time -- well, you'll figure it out!
- owenpalmer 4y ago
  Thank you! I'll be sure to apply this.

peter_d_sherman 4y ago

I have to give "mad props" to Fabrice Bellard and Donald Knuth -- but don't forget about Brian Kernighan, Dennis Richie, Niklaus Wirth, Charles Simonyi, Raymond Chen, Mike "Assume Nothing" Abrash, Jeff Dean, Edsger Dijkstra, Andrew Tanenbaum, Linus Torvalds, Anders Hejlsberg, Joel Spolsky, and, more recently Eelco Dolstra -- and all of the hundreds of thousands of unnamed unsung committers to GitHub and other open-source repositories... And of course Charles Babbage, George Boole, Alan Turing, John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert, Claude Shannon, John Von Neuman, Grace Hopper -- and the other early pioneers of computation...

GianFabien 4y ago
In my reading of interviews, biographies of many of the foregoing, I don't recall a single one having the goal of being "the best". Most certainly not in the sense that we talk about sports stars. In my understanding, each and every person on your list was passionate about solving some problem, extending their knowledge, sharing their learning with others. The recognition followed their contributions.