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Interview with Jon Skeet
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- junto 12y agoAs a fellow Brit and as someone working in C# everyday, Jon Skeet is somewhat of a personal hero of mine. I can't count the number of times I've turned to StackOverflow and found the answer to have be written by him. Chappeau! Interestingly we appear to have had similar paths to get to our careers. I too started off with BASIC and the BBC B Micro. I then went on to study Computer Science at GCSE, A-Level and then at university. Jon must be a similar age to me, so I'm guessing he also was one of the first to take GCSE's after the UK switched from the 'O-level' (1990-1991). Great little interview. Thanks for sharing @eddie_31003.
- weavie 12y agoSnap! Did my comp sci GCSE in 1990.
- plant42 12y agoAs did I, though I started with a Commodore VIC-20.
- hellodevnull 12y agoHow was it? I didn't have an option to take CS either for GCSE or A-Level. There was IT but most university departments actually discouraged it and recommended just taking science and maths.
- weavie 12y agoTo be honest it was so long ago I can't really remember too much. I recall trying to learn SQL and relational theory but just not getting it and thinking I would never use it anyway - how naive I was! That might have been A-Level. They taught us BASIC, I can't remember the computers we had, I don't think they were popular ones. I do remember one of my colleagues really struggled with his practical project because he named all his variables a, aa, aaa, aaaa and so on. There was a maximum variable length of 8 characters so things went all wrong when he needed to use 9 variables. I don't think we were taught anything about quality software development, using decent variable names, algorithms etc.. Overall I did find the courses incredibly easy and I aced both without even trying. It was university where things started to get a bit more challenging. I did science and maths as well, I did get much more out of those courses.
- junto 12y agoWe got taught lots of basic stuff in GCSE. I remember high level stuff about computer parrts, peripherals, etc. Not much about networking. All very 'fluffy'. A-level started more programming. We learnt Turbo Pascal (6 maybe?). I wrote my own DOS based windowing app for a sailing (racing) management tool. .
- bohinjc 12y agooff-topic, but it always amaze me how 'chappeau' finished with 2 'p', as did a lot of English words derived from middle/old french (single to double-n or double-p are common). Out of curiosity from a non-native speaker : does the double-p makes it more idiomatic for native English speakers ?
- topbanana 12y agoIt's not an English word
- S_A_P 12y agoThis guy has always impressed me. He works on Java at Google and spends a large chunk of time being a C# and .NET expert. Obviously C# and Java are semantically close to the point of nearly interchangeable, but the devil is in the details and he seems to have them down.
- V-2 12y agoJava is years behind C# in most aspects. Of course it doesn't mean it follows the same path, but there's less to learn if you switch from (modern) C# to Java than the other way round.
- AceJohnny2 12y agoI'm vaguely aware of Jon Skeet from echoes from the Windows dev world, from which I've largely stayed detached. Can someone explain the significance of Jon Skeet, preferebly in terms of "Facts" in the style of Bruce Schneier's [1] or Jeff Dean's [2]? [1] http://www.schneierfacts.com/ http://www.schneierfacts.com/ [2] http://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts http://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts
- bgc 12y agoJon Skeet is a frequent contributor to StackOverflow.com[0], where he is known for being able to answer highly obscure questions with equally obscure answers[1]. [0] http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6841333/why-is-subtracting-these-two-times-in-1927-giving-a-strange-result/6841479#6841479 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6841333/why-is-subtractin...
- unwind 12y agoHe's also, kind of, known for being the top user in terms of reputation points. It's a little like there's Jon Skeet, then there's nothing for a while, then there's somebody else. His average reputation increase per day is often more than 300. Of course, 200 is the typical "cap" on daily increase, but somehow he Skeets around that. He'll probably reach a million points this year. Not that I think reputation points on Stack Overflow is very interesting or meaningful, of course. :)
- flurdy 12y agoHas Jon Skeet reached one million yet: http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com Not quite this year, but soon. (Ps, add your own id to see when you reach it: http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com/155689 http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com/155689 Mine is in quite a few years)
- ygra 12y ago
- jimbobimbo 12y agoI envy the way he manages to balance all commitments in his life. Pretty amazing.
- nstart 12y agoMe too. I find myself frustrated with my inability to balance stuff every now and then. I would love to sit with Jon and just have him say "here.. here's where you are doing it wrong" and then find enlightenment. :D
- johnny_reilly 12y agoQuite apart from his obvious technical chops, I've always been impressed by Jon Skeet's unfailing politeness and helpfulness. He's a real role model to developers. Whatta guy!
- gadders 12y agoI'm guessing this is what they mean by a 10x programmer? :-)
- pmelendez 12y agoAnd the Chuck Norris of programming :) http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts
- WorldWideWayne 12y agoI thought that Google engineers weren't allowed to use Windows.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y agoGoogle produces some software for Windows - e.g. Chrome. How did you think they did that if they weren't allowed to use the OS?
- WorldWideWayne 12y agoSorry, I was just being sarcastic about how Google doesn't allow broad Windows usage, allegedly because they're afraid of Chinese hackers. I just always thought it was a bullshit reason that was trumped up to make Microsoft look bad. (edited for clarity)
- chdir 12y agoI would vote for him as the most decent & helpful guy on Stackoverflow. I've always found his tone humble, which isn't very common these days. Really glad to have people like him around.
- j-hernandez 12y agoNice interview, I always enjoy reading his contributions on StackOverflow. I don't always understand what even the problem at hand is, but it's just a fascinating exercise to read some of his responses and the obscure facts behind them. Science Fact: Jon Skeet cannot parse HTML using regular expressions [0] 0: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/537093 http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/537093