The game Banished (http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/game/) is another modern example of an amazing piece of software turned out by a single programmer.
A Salute to Solo Programmers
21–30 of 84 posts
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#22I'm the only developer in my ad agency of about 80 people. It's super cool to write all my own code, make all my own stack choices. To know that I wrote everything here is a really cool feeling. At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. And given my extremely young age (only a few years out of school) sometimes it can be hard to be sure I'm making the most efficient choices. There's a lot of times…
I would have to say your in a much different place than these guys were. The internet, open source (the amount of it at least), the FOTM chat client...
If you want to talk shop you are more than welcome to contribute to one of the open source projects out there (I'm sure you have a few in the stack). I will say it isn't the same as having a partner in crime at work, but you can get your self exposed to new ideas and thinking if you so choose!
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#23I'm the only developer in my ad agency of about 80 people. It's super cool to write all my own code, make all my own stack choices. To know that I wrote everything here is a really cool feeling. At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. And given my extremely young age (only a few years out of school) sometimes it can be hard to be sure I'm making the most efficient choices. There's a lot of times…
I would have to say your in a much different place than these guys were. The internet, open source (the amount of it at least), the FOTM chat client... If you want to talk shop you are more than welcome to contribute to one of the open source projects out there (I'm sure you have a few in the stack). I will say it isn't the same as having a partner in crime at work, but you can get your self exposed to new ideas and…
Oh totally, it's a completely different world. I mean look at Stackoverflow. Literally one google search can solve even the more complex problems a programmer might encounter. Like you said, github, meetups, skype...just reading through source code on github helps me immensely.
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#24AFAIK LuaJIT was the work of Solo programmer Mike Pall. He built it on top of Lua, of course, but it's still an incredible feat of engineering and dedication. There are some who speculate that Mike Pall is possibly an alias for a whole team of people, but I think the reality is it's just one hard-working and extremely talented individual. He's now in the process of passing on the torch to the community, after a decade of shepherding LuaJIT.
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#25I'm the only developer in my ad agency of about 80 people. It's super cool to write all my own code, make all my own stack choices. To know that I wrote everything here is a really cool feeling. At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. And given my extremely young age (only a few years out of school) sometimes it can be hard to be sure I'm making the most efficient choices. There's a lot of times…
> At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs.
I'm in the same position, it's really lonely being the only technical resource. Just someone to bounce ideas off of. On the other side, everything works and when it doesn't I know exactly why within moments because I wrote it all.
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#26Here is another. He writes in assembler. Steve Gibson GRC.com.
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#27I've been doing the (unpaid) solo thing for years, and I'm almost sure I'm gonna give it up now. I built Tiled Text ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tztmgCcZaM4&feature=youtu.be... ) while working at a grocery store and dealing with a repetitive strain injury, and it was a miserable, awful experience. I designed and built this 'abstract visual debugger': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvfMthDInwE while my savings s…
Your abstract visual debugger is really cool! I was thinking about pursuing something similar for my bachelor thesis but ended up doing something much different.
I'm curious to learn more about your insights regarding the subject, where can I find more information?
Also curious to learn what made you go from thinking "this was you" to thinking another lifestyle could make you happier, which lifestyle? Why?
Edit: Going through your submissions now (:
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#28I'm the only developer in my ad agency of about 80 people. It's super cool to write all my own code, make all my own stack choices. To know that I wrote everything here is a really cool feeling. At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. And given my extremely young age (only a few years out of school) sometimes it can be hard to be sure I'm making the most efficient choices. There's a lot of times…
> At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. I'm in the same position, it's really lonely being the only technical resource. Just someone to bounce ideas off of. On the other side, everything works and when it doesn't I know exactly why within moments because I wrote it all.
I had this problem for years. And then I picked an open source project that uses the same language and tools and started contributing to it. I made some great friends and the mailing list was always live with discussion that was often much broader than the thing we were building. Over the years we also met live on a couple of conferences, had drings/dinners together and it really helped me fill the void of working alone on commercial side.
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At the same time, I really miss talking shop with other devs. I'm in the same position, it's really lonely being the only technical resource. Just someone to bounce ideas off of. On the other side, everything works and when it doesn't I know exactly why within moments because I wrote it all.
I had this problem for years. And then I picked an open source project that uses the same language and tools and started contributing to it. I made some great friends and the mailing list was always live with discussion that was often much broader than the thing we were building. Over the years we also met live on a couple of conferences, had drings/dinners together and it really helped me fill the void of working al…
This!
Re: A Salute to Solo Programmers
#30The game Banished ( http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/game/ ) is another modern example of an amazing piece of software turned out by a single programmer.
While we're looking at amazing gaming accomplishments my solo programmers, there's also Axiom Verge (http://www.axiomverge.com/) which was released on PS4/PC this year.