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I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

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Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#161

Post by lambdaone »

sph wrote: post #127
audunw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozart doesn’t feel right. The code isn’t beautiful and elegant. It’s not built to last (at least for ffmpeg) or be some kind of masterpiece. He writes code to get a job done or tickle some intellectual curiosity. It’s not beautiful but that’s OK. I think Unicorn illustrates one of the issues with his style. It wouldn’t have needed to exist of the QEMU code was architected into neat components. But then writing spagh…

> I think there’s actually a sharp contrast with John Carmack here. Fabrice might be smarter and faster but Carmack is perhaps a better software engineer. There’s few things I find more pathetic than trying really hard to show who’s best and ranking things that have no business being ranked. You will find humans are n-dimensional and elude these simplistic categories.

Carmack and Bellard are both wizards, and trying to rank them is a fool's errand. Let's appreciate them both!

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#162

Post by gpderetta »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #103
hnlmorg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think developers sometimes get too obsessed with code quality thinking that smarter code makes them a better developer. In fact I’ve seen developers fall into the trap of mistaking their code as the product and thus spend so much time beautifying it that that fail to ever release anything. Then you have the other end of the spectrum where people are too focused on hacking stuff together that the end result is unmai…

But the code quality is speed. And reach. You can not advance, unless you can read the code, you can understand the model, you can not scale beyond a certain point. The beauty of the architecture is the ability to build a spaceship compared to a train of kerosene tankers. Physically similar, but in capability radical different. I find this very scary. Somebody unable to perceive capabilities and tech-debt. If you can…

great coders ship.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#164

Post by sph »

yaantc wrote: post #140
sph wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there’s actually a sharp contrast with John Carmack here. Fabrice might be smarter and faster but Carmack is perhaps a better software engineer. There’s few things I find more pathetic than trying really hard to show who’s best and ranking things that have no business being ranked. You will find humans are n-dimensional and elude these simplistic categories.

Yes, ranking requires reducing to a single dimension where all interesting things are multi-dimensions. This is a lossy process, which often tells more about the one(s) doing the ranking than what's ranked.

I was thinking of sport players that have their stats laid out as a radar chart. One might be average on defense, but a world class striker. Is he better than a world class defender but average striker? And even that is a convenient and lossy approximation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#166

Post by swiftcoder »

theshrike79 wrote: post #20
swiftcoder wrote: post #13

> A French engineer who lives quietly in Paris has spent 30 years writing software that the entire internet now runs on without knowing his name. ... do tech people really not know who Fabrice Bellard is? He's kind of a household name in a lot of programming circles

I have an explicit rule not to meet or look up my heroes. Been burned way too many times. I don't need to know who is building VLC, curl, ffmpeg or any of the other essentials in my life. I just appreciate their work and pitch in some money if possible.

> I have an explicit rule not to meet or look up my heroes. Been burned way too many times.

I mean, don't put them on a pedestal, but meeting them can still be fun. Carmack may have developed some really unfortunate rich-guy political views, but it was nice to get to go to Dallas to meet him.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#167

Post by ninkendo »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #82
dgellow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop calling every niche an echo chamber?

It is an echo chamber if you think your niche is universal though.

“And quartz, of course”

https://xkcd.com/2501/

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#168

Post by psychoslave »

hnlmorg wrote: post #97
audunw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozart doesn’t feel right. The code isn’t beautiful and elegant. It’s not built to last (at least for ffmpeg) or be some kind of masterpiece. He writes code to get a job done or tickle some intellectual curiosity. It’s not beautiful but that’s OK. I think Unicorn illustrates one of the issues with his style. It wouldn’t have needed to exist of the QEMU code was architected into neat components. But then writing spagh…

I think developers sometimes get too obsessed with code quality thinking that smarter code makes them a better developer. In fact I’ve seen developers fall into the trap of mistaking their code as the product and thus spend so much time beautifying it that that fail to ever release anything. Then you have the other end of the spectrum where people are too focused on hacking stuff together that the end result is unmai…

> I think developers sometimes get too obsessed with code quality thinking that smarter code makes them a better developer.

Not much about "smartness", but code can by far outlast many "product" sold on top of it, so it can make sense to polish them more than the ready to throw gift paper.

People will certainly buy nice gift paper wrapping cheap crap music toy of the day. But they will also value differently access to a beautiful handcrafted musical instrument. On the other hands, people who don’t even play any music won’t be able to assess any musical appliance.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#169

Post by slmjkdbtl »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #116

For those unaware, you can find Fabrice's website here: https://bellard.org/ It has a full list of his projects.

Great programmers often also have great personal website design, everything is so clear and not one bit of redundance.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#170

Post by sph »

hamburgererror wrote: post #35

> He just keeps shipping. > He just wrote code. > He was not done. > He kept going. > He is still shipping. That guy talks like a scrum master, this linkedin bullshit writing style is just so bad...

It's an AI generated profile that posts this kind of slop weekly about popular developers and entrepreneurs. The type of feel good shit that makes the front page of social media. Not even Carmack is immune.
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