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Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a Super-Productive Programmer (2011)

114 points by ohjeez 4y ago

pipeline_peak 4y ago
Let it be known, despite his lack of public activity and consistent refusal to interviews, Bellard is very kind. I emailed him curious about attempts in browser development, replied within two days! Maybe that’s common than I think, I don’t email outside of work often.
michaelwww 4y ago
As a programmer, I am in awe of what Fabrice Bellard has accomplished. This article made me curious about his background, jokingly thinking that if he was Catholic he could become the Patron Saint of Computer Programmers for giving away many millions of software for free. I was amused to find he was born in the place that kicked off the French Revolution: The city gained some notoriety on 7 June 1788 when the townspeople assaulted troops of Louis XVI in the "Day of the Tiles". The people attacked the royal troops to prevent an expulsion of the notables of the city, which would have seriously endangered the economic prosperity of Grenoble. Following these events, the Assembly of Vizille took place. Its members organized the meeting of the old Estates General, thus beginning the French Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenoble#From_Louis_XIV_to_the_French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenoble#From_Louis_XIV_to_the... From the French Revolution to the PC and internet revolution The article is old and since he hasn't slowed down, there's more: https://bellard.org/ https://bellard.org/ including QuickJS, and embedable JavaScript engine: https://bellard.org/quickjs/ https://bellard.org/quickjs/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chucksmash 4y ago
There's a weird interplay between comments and submissions on HN. Popular comment about Bellard yesterday? Bet you'll see a write-up of Bellard submitted today. The third stage will be tomorrow when comments casually refer to information gleaned from the article submitted today as if it were common knowledge. There will be an article about a new JS framework and someone will make a comment like "of course, programmers like Bellard[0] managed to be quite productive without the use of a similar framework." The circle of life is majestic to behold.
- ceres 4y ago
  There’s a comment I read on the other article where someone said > that dude is a wizard wielding c like a brain surgeon wields a scalpel. I’ve decided that’s the analogy I’ll be using for someone who’s really good at something
- gaius_baltar 4y ago
  > Popular comment about Bellard yesterday? Bet you'll see a write-up of Bellard submitted today. I don't know what triggered this particular (re)submission, but I found about his quickjs hours ago by reading a thread about javascript in youtube-dl that is a serious candidate ...
- zamadatix 4y ago
  I'd say Fabrice Bellard is more a "mythical mainstay". It's hard to go a week without someone posting about him and his projects if you keep an eye out for it. Right now 3 of the stories on the front page (including this one) have mentions of him which is definitely more than average but even when this dips down you'll still see the constant trickle. A large part of it is obviously that his projects really are good and plentiful but I think another sizeable part is due to something the article points out: he doesn't do any self promotion. He doesn't write blogposts, he doesn't do interviews, he doesn't have any hot takes on Twitter, he doesn't comment on HN... he just writes great code. It's both admirable/enviable as well as a bit more mysterious or "out of reach" than a lot of the other "legendary programmers" e.g. Justine who write equally amazing things but are a bit more tangible here. Not that one way is right or wrong it just helps his name get pretty consistently randomly brought up by HNers.
  - stoicjumbotron 4y ago
    If possible, can you please link the comments? I really like to read anything on Bellard
    - jraph 4y ago
      You can use the search feature of HN and ask to order by date. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Bellard&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
mathfailure 4y ago
403 ERROR The request could not be satisfied. The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
- d0mine 4y ago
  Try google cache. It may be builtin in some apps for HN e.g., HACK https://apps.apple.com/en/app/hack-for-hacker-news-reader/id1464477788 https://apps.apple.com/en/app/hack-for-hacker-news-reader/id...
bitwize 4y ago
Fabrice Bellard -- the programmer that makes John Carmack go "whoa, slow down buddy, let the rest of us catch up".
solarkraft 4y ago
My constant response reading about Bellard is "woah wait, be made that too?". It's a bit of a bummer he doesn't seem to like interviews, since there's probably a lot that could be learned about his serial FOSS-entrepreneurship.
dhsysusbsjsi 4y ago
Heroes wear many capes - don’t forget about the person that just spent 4000 hours creating an application with complex menu’s and logic for a specific domain. The right person can be extremely productive and generate incredible value anywhere, but often it just isn’t as sexy as compression algorithms. A tip of my hat to all you hard working talented people out there.
- Kranar 4y ago
  I feel like you may have some good intention behind your post but it comes off as really condescending, as if all Mr. Bellard accomplished is some sexy compression algorithm.
sn0n 4y ago
Love bellard. Another super hero programmer Justin Frankel doesn't get nearly as much press.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
The tech community is one of most interesting communities : on one hand there are overwhelmingly evangelists saying your language is “dead”, on the other hand that “dead” language is used by heroes who are changing the world. And both parties are striving even though what they are saying are obviously contradictory. I guess he just showed us how to make a point without making a point.
slooonz 4y ago
When anyone tells me that "there’s no such thing as a 10x programmer", he’s my go-to example.
- nolok 4y ago
  He's more of an exception that confirm the rules than an example. The guy has several project that most of us would be proud to have one of.

114 points by ohjeez 4y ago

Let it be known, despite his lack of public activity and consistent refusal to interviews, Bellard is very kind. I emailed him curious about attempts in browser development, replied within two days! Maybe that’s common than I think, I don’t email outside of work often.

michaelwww 4y ago

As a programmer, I am in awe of what Fabrice Bellard has accomplished. This article made me curious about his background, jokingly thinking that if he was Catholic he could become the Patron Saint of Computer Programmers for giving away many millions of software for free. I was amused to find he was born in the place that kicked off the French Revolution: The city gained some notoriety on 7 June 1788 when the townspeople assaulted troops of Louis XVI in the "Day of the Tiles". The people attacked the royal troops to prevent an expulsion of the notables of the city, which would have seriously endangered the economic prosperity of Grenoble. Following these events, the Assembly of Vizille took place. Its members organized the meeting of the old Estates General, thus beginning the French Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenoble#From_Louis_XIV_to_the_French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenoble#From_Louis_XIV_to_the... From the French Revolution to the PC and internet revolution The article is old and since he hasn't slowed down, there's more: https://bellard.org/ https://bellard.org/ including QuickJS, and embedable JavaScript engine: https://bellard.org/quickjs/ https://bellard.org/quickjs/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chucksmash 4y ago

There's a weird interplay between comments and submissions on HN. Popular comment about Bellard yesterday? Bet you'll see a write-up of Bellard submitted today. The third stage will be tomorrow when comments casually refer to information gleaned from the article submitted today as if it were common knowledge. There will be an article about a new JS framework and someone will make a comment like "of course, programmers like Bellard[0] managed to be quite productive without the use of a similar framework." The circle of life is majestic to behold.

ceres 4y ago
There’s a comment I read on the other article where someone said > that dude is a wizard wielding c like a brain surgeon wields a scalpel. I’ve decided that’s the analogy I’ll be using for someone who’s really good at something
gaius_baltar 4y ago
> Popular comment about Bellard yesterday? Bet you'll see a write-up of Bellard submitted today. I don't know what triggered this particular (re)submission, but I found about his quickjs hours ago by reading a thread about javascript in youtube-dl that is a serious candidate ...
zamadatix 4y ago
I'd say Fabrice Bellard is more a "mythical mainstay". It's hard to go a week without someone posting about him and his projects if you keep an eye out for it. Right now 3 of the stories on the front page (including this one) have mentions of him which is definitely more than average but even when this dips down you'll still see the constant trickle. A large part of it is obviously that his projects really are good and plentiful but I think another sizeable part is due to something the article points out: he doesn't do any self promotion. He doesn't write blogposts, he doesn't do interviews, he doesn't have any hot takes on Twitter, he doesn't comment on HN... he just writes great code. It's both admirable/enviable as well as a bit more mysterious or "out of reach" than a lot of the other "legendary programmers" e.g. Justine who write equally amazing things but are a bit more tangible here. Not that one way is right or wrong it just helps his name get pretty consistently randomly brought up by HNers.
- stoicjumbotron 4y ago
  If possible, can you please link the comments? I really like to read anything on Bellard
  - jraph 4y ago
    You can use the search feature of HN and ask to order by date. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Bellard&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

mathfailure 4y ago

403 ERROR The request could not be satisfied. The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.

d0mine 4y ago
Try google cache. It may be builtin in some apps for HN e.g., HACK https://apps.apple.com/en/app/hack-for-hacker-news-reader/id1464477788 https://apps.apple.com/en/app/hack-for-hacker-news-reader/id...

bitwize 4y ago

Fabrice Bellard -- the programmer that makes John Carmack go "whoa, slow down buddy, let the rest of us catch up".

solarkraft 4y ago

My constant response reading about Bellard is "woah wait, be made that too?". It's a bit of a bummer he doesn't seem to like interviews, since there's probably a lot that could be learned about his serial FOSS-entrepreneurship.

dhsysusbsjsi 4y ago

Heroes wear many capes - don’t forget about the person that just spent 4000 hours creating an application with complex menu’s and logic for a specific domain. The right person can be extremely productive and generate incredible value anywhere, but often it just isn’t as sexy as compression algorithms. A tip of my hat to all you hard working talented people out there.

Kranar 4y ago
I feel like you may have some good intention behind your post but it comes off as really condescending, as if all Mr. Bellard accomplished is some sexy compression algorithm.

sn0n 4y ago

Love bellard. Another super hero programmer Justin Frankel doesn't get nearly as much press.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

The tech community is one of most interesting communities : on one hand there are overwhelmingly evangelists saying your language is “dead”, on the other hand that “dead” language is used by heroes who are changing the world. And both parties are striving even though what they are saying are obviously contradictory. I guess he just showed us how to make a point without making a point.

slooonz 4y ago

When anyone tells me that "there’s no such thing as a 10x programmer", he’s my go-to example.

nolok 4y ago
He's more of an exception that confirm the rules than an example. The guy has several project that most of us would be proud to have one of.