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Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

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Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#31

Post by marknutter »

yorak wrote: post #6

The question from previous discussion remains unanswered. How does he finance his production of top notch open source software? At least for me, the day to day churn of my day job leaves me too mentally exhausted to chase the crazy ideas I get from time to time, let alone finish them. Imagine a world where hackers, artists and artisans could follow their passions and could chase crazy ideas without a risk of losing t…

But if the problems you're solving are truly great, then they would be worth enough money to fund your development effort.

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#32

Post by flaie »

thejasper wrote: post #20
aninteger wrote: post #11

Fabrice is awesome. I am also extremely impressed with the code written by a guy that goes by the name of Bisqwit. He has multiple videos speed coding here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Bisqwit

Do anyone know how these coding videos are created?

I don't know about the video, but there is a tool named Homura[1] that snapshots a file in Vim every so and often, and is able to generate a HTML file with interactive playback. Maybe it can be of some help. I found a sample online too[2]

[1]: http://uguu-archive.appspot.com/homura/manual.html

[2]: http://uguu-archive.appspot.com/nyaruko/edit.html

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#33

Post by 16s »

tangue wrote: post #23
DigitalSea wrote: post #8

My theory is that Fabrice is not human and most likely a creature not of this world. Seriously, how the hell can someone be so talented and amazing and above all remain such a nice guy? Fabrice is a down to Earth and amazingly talented individual who will go down in history; text books will reference him, heck he'll have a movie one day (maybe not). I don't care if this is an old article, Bellard deserves to be on th…

Reading his accomplishment is humbling for any programmer. The fact that he doesn't act like an asshole should serve as an example for the rest of us.

Everyone is an asshole in someone's mind. You'll never please all people, and when you don't, they'll think you're an asshole. That's life. Don't let what they think bother you.

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#35

Post by X-Istence »

timtadh wrote: post #27
xentronium wrote: post #2

He also authored jslinux[1] in 2011. This guy is amazing and I am truly envious. [1] http://bellard.org/jslinux/

Wow that is really amazing. It actually works. It has wget installed and gcc, tcc a workable vi and screen! You could actually be productive in this enviroment!!! EDIT: Looks like there is no iface though. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise. I didn't catch that until I tried to wget bash and see how long it would take to compile.

Just paste the binary into the clipboard using base64 or something along those lines, then base64 decode it, and go ahead and compile it =)

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#36

Post by DanI-S »

DigitalSea wrote: post #8

My theory is that Fabrice is not human and most likely a creature not of this world. Seriously, how the hell can someone be so talented and amazing and above all remain such a nice guy? Fabrice is a down to Earth and amazingly talented individual who will go down in history; text books will reference him, heck he'll have a movie one day (maybe not). I don't care if this is an old article, Bellard deserves to be on th…

> Seriously, how the hell can someone be so talented and amazing and above all remain such a nice guy?

There are a lot of those kind of people, from all walks of life. They're just not on HN.

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#37

Post by X-Istence »

davedx wrote: post #26
yorak wrote: post #6

The question from previous discussion remains unanswered. How does he finance his production of top notch open source software? At least for me, the day to day churn of my day job leaves me too mentally exhausted to chase the crazy ideas I get from time to time, let alone finish them. Imagine a world where hackers, artists and artisans could follow their passions and could chase crazy ideas without a risk of losing t…

It's one of the main reasons I decided to become a freelancer. I've been at it for a few months and I can now pull in 5-6k euros for a month long project. This leaves me the option to either work the whole year if I can keep things pipelined and come out with a really nice income, or spend decent chunks of time on my own projects. I'm currently still figuring out the balance between those two. Just had a week off bet…

How do you get started with this?

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#38

Post by ytNumbers »

16s wrote: post #33
tangue wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading his accomplishment is humbling for any programmer. The fact that he doesn't act like an asshole should serve as an example for the rest of us.

Everyone is an asshole in someone's mind. You'll never please all people, and when you don't, they'll think you're an asshole. That's life. Don't let what they think bother you.

If one person calls you a jackass, ignore him. If two people call you a jackass, think about it. If three people call you a jackass, buy yourself a saddle.

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#39

Post by _phred »

ishansharma wrote: post #14

"If there’s a secret to this superhero-level productivity, it appears to have less to do with comic-book mutation and radioactivity, and far more with discipline, confidence, rigor, and many years of practice." This is one line that you should take away from the article. Most of us think that highly productive programmers are magicians but we forget that they are just like us, just hard working and disciplined.

Flip side: don't feel tiny in comparison to this guy's achievements.

Did he bang out LZEXE the first time he sat down at a terminal? Probably not. But over time, through pursuit of a passion and hard work, his skill has progressed incredibly.

We can get there too, with persistence. And we can have fun on the way.

This is as much a reminder for me as anyone, I have a tendency to compare myself to amazingly talented and productive people and get discouraged with where I am now. But you know what? I'm farther along than I was a few years ago, and that ain't nothing. :-)

One of my favorite quotes on the subject:

   "Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle."

Re: Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive programmer (2011)

#40

Post by cookiecaper »

yorak wrote: post #6

The question from previous discussion remains unanswered. How does he finance his production of top notch open source software? At least for me, the day to day churn of my day job leaves me too mentally exhausted to chase the crazy ideas I get from time to time, let alone finish them. Imagine a world where hackers, artists and artisans could follow their passions and could chase crazy ideas without a risk of losing t…

>But how to do this in real life?

Mormonism prescribes an entire system for this called "The United Order", if you're really interested in a unique answer to that question. Happy to field your questions about it.

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