Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parent knows. He makes an analogy, not an absolute equivalence.
[flagged]
This thread is why he is not on Twitter
I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
121–130 of 488 posts
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#122The picture appears to be real, if we trust this source:
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#123Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#124First time I see his picture, and it’s a bit like someone’s revealed the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto when it’s clear they are going out of their way to protect their privacy and stay out of the limelight. My impression is the guy had always better things to do than engage with the greater internet, like thinking real hard and solving difficult problems. Much respect to his work, but even more respect to his work eth…
Honestly, two mythologized figures (Carmack and Bellard). They're good (like, quite good), but as soon as their names come up people start talking about some weird expectation of what they are supposed to think rather than the actual things they did. Somehow, that mythologizing diminishes their accomplishments.
Oh, this is human nature and you will find it impossible to avoid this framing of cult figures, because they are indeed cult figures - albeit positively perceived ones, since they appear to not just be doing it for themselves, but altruistically every wonder they produce is for their users - and thus their works have effectively and productively impacted the lives of millions of other people, at economies of scale most of us here on HN aspire to.
And it is that aspiration you’re degrading with the rush to de-mythologize, as if it weren’t inevitable, under the crushing rush of time, that we in the hacker world had heroes.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#125In 2006, in my first job after uni in France, I wrote a toy PaaS system called CASIMIR based on qemu. It was a lot of fun, I could via a web UI launch VMs, access them via VNC, etc..
I've always had a lot of admiration for Fabrice Bellard, I always wished I was as good an engineer as he is.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#126I’m asking genuinely: What’s the point of linking to Carmack’s tweet? The intellectual curiosity (what HN is ostensibly about) is all in the quoted tweet (despite it being written like an LLM trained on LinkedIn posts). Carmack isn’t really adding anything of importance or interest. Linking to him feels a bit cult of personality, as if Bellard is deserving of attention because Carmack gave some vague praise with qual…
The tweet also reads a bit off to me too. Carmack positions himself as if he is a some sort of a litmus test for being a great and successful programmer, which I don't doubt that he is but it's a bit strange. Egotripping.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I say, Bellard is Mozart when most of us can't even hope to be Salieri.
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.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#128"Fabrice Bellard" by Andy Gocke and Nick Pizzolato https://www.ipaidia.gr/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/117-2020-f...
Jesus... has that ever been submitted to HN!? It should be.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#129First time I see his picture, and it’s a bit like someone’s revealed the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto when it’s clear they are going out of their way to protect their privacy and stay out of the limelight. My impression is the guy had always better things to do than engage with the greater internet, like thinking real hard and solving difficult problems. Much respect to his work, but even more respect to his work eth…
Honestly, two mythologized figures (Carmack and Bellard). They're good (like, quite good), but as soon as their names come up people start talking about some weird expectation of what they are supposed to think rather than the actual things they did. Somehow, that mythologizing diminishes their accomplishments.
Telling stories, looking for gods that don't have our limitations and telling stories about those gods is pretty much in our nature irrespective of the era.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#130First time I see his picture, and it’s a bit like someone’s revealed the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto when it’s clear they are going out of their way to protect their privacy and stay out of the limelight. My impression is the guy had always better things to do than engage with the greater internet, like thinking real hard and solving difficult problems. Much respect to his work, but even more respect to his work eth…
As I say, Bellard is Mozart when most of us can't even hope to be Salieri.
Obsessed with poop?