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Fabrice Bellard seems to me an outlier to the author's premise. He's like the very definition of a hermit genius-programmer.
by laichzeit0 12y ago
Fabrice Bellard seems to me an outlier to the author's premise. He's like the very definition of a hermit genius-programmer.
- davis 12y agoWell of course there will always be outliers =]. I prefer the Satoshi Nakamoto outlier myself.
- smrtinsert 12y agoI can think of a ton of programmers that have single handled changed our profession, Linus, ESR, DHH, Doug Cutting, Brendan Eich, James Gosling.. I dunno, I don't think it's really that rare at all.
- drhayes9 12y agoOut of how many programmers in the world, ever? They're basically statistical noise against the backdrop of all coders everywhere. As a sidenote, I'd put Grace Hopper up there instead of DHH, and Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thomopson seem to be missing. ; )
- balls187 12y agoJohn Carmack. He's not a hermit, but definitely a genius programmer who has built things by himself without putting himself "out there."
- laichzeit0 12y agoYeah definitely I was thinking about him while driving home today. In the book Masters of Doom you get a good sense for how much time he spent thinking and programming out ideas he came up in what seems like total-isolation. There wasn't Internet or books on the subject available at the time because it didn't exist yet. In the Graphics Programming Black Book there are also anecdotes by Abrash that give you a sense for what kind of solitary genius this guy has.