4 ms·
"Tech people" aren't one single homogeneous mass. His name is unlikely to show up in the same conversation as, say, DHH.
by pdpi 4mo ago
"Tech people" aren't one single homogeneous mass. His name is unlikely to show up in the same conversation as, say, DHH.
- jdsnape 4mo agoI knew of Fabrice, and have admired him for many years…but who is DHH?
- otabdeveloper4 4mo agoYeah, same.
- konart 4mo agoRuby on Rails creator (among other things).
- Bigpet 4mo agoIf you did "web stuff" in the early 2000s (like 2005-2010). You'd probably know who he is. He did Ruby on Rails, a backend web framework. But that was also very Start-up and America focussed. So if you did web dev in some other country and didn't have colleagues who were into that culture you still might've missed the name.
- konart 4mo agoTBH the biggest difference is him being more vocal. I'm pretty sure most of the people who did "web stuff" at the time and used twitter (key point maybe) know him simply because you'd often see his tweets. Regardless of coutry (I'm from Russia, for exampl)
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoThere was a big RoR scene in Glasgow in the mid-2000s, but there were a few of us that were resolutely Django. I stand by that decision, for various reasons. Not least being that "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby" gave me the ick.
- hdgvhicv 4mo agoRu y was something that one guy tinkered with briefly. It was less used than Perl. Java and php was what tools were built in at my company.
- noufalibrahim 4mo agoDHH markets himself much better. His company (basecamp), in a sense, revolves around his public persona and he's unapologetic about this. It's the same with all of his projects (e.g. Omarchy recently).
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- swiftcoder 4mo agoTo be fair, I don't think anyone outside the Ruby community knew who DHH was until his politics went viral on twitter
- lproven 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson
- _zoltan_ 4mo agoDHH is even less known, don't kid yourself.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoOh DHH is well known. We all know about DHH.
- DonHopkins 4mo agoJust that he's a douchebag, not what the letters stand for.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoI hope your middle name doesn't start with H ;-) We know it's not you.
- pdpi 4mo agoI'm not saying DHH is more widely known than Fabrice Bellard. I'm saying that it really depends on your audience. I can think of many colleagues over the years who would know who David is, but not Fabrice. (Also, I specifically chose DHH as somebody who's highly unlikely to show up in the same discussion as Fabrice Bellard, not because I'm a fan of his. Judging from the replies, I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations!)
- defrost 4mo agoThat's understood in the comment which explicitly indicates that there are many programming circles and that Bellard is known in a number of them (but not all). eg: I grew up in the Australian Kimberley region (kind of remote), spent decades in geophysical mapping, multi channel data processing, computational algebra, and other odd niches, have no real interest in SV, and am quite familiar with Bellard's work. No idea who DHH is though.
- a96 4mo agohttps://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-problem https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro... https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-right-racists/75986 https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-righ...
- account42 4mo agoThat validates his point - barely anyone outside the ruby community would even know about DHH if he didn't manage to trigger the eternally outraged.
- a96 4mo agoOh, yes. That was a straight-face answer to "who DHH is", not anything to contradict or argue anyone's point. I never heard of the initialism in any other context either.
- hdgvhicv 4mo agoWhat is a DHH? A person?
- lproven 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson