Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 488 posts

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

#221

Post by fdsfsdsd »

raverbashing wrote: post #85
pandaforce wrote: post #47

Bellard hasn't been involved in FFmpeg for *over 20 years* at this point, and more like 23. His code was not great and reeked of sphagetti due to FFmpeg back then lacking any framework for code sharing between components and codecs. These days none of his code survives. Everything that became of FFmpeg is because of other developers. Yet he's treated as the one-and-only BDFL of FFmpeg, with any other developers build…

The psyop about "only shipping clean code" has been a big drag on projects On the real world, if it runs and solves their problem nobody gives a fucc. Period Props on him.

Watch how developers breathlessly defend code quality and stand tall ready to die on the hill against "AI slop". Craftsmanship, quality control, oh, it's all so, so important. No, it's absolutely vital to civilization.

Then witness the amazing reversal when some member of The Tribe pushes unbelievably unreadable slop that works. Then we see his Ring getting kissed by all the betas: "if it work, it works".

Pick a side. Quality is important or not?

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

#223

Post by tennfown »

miki123211 wrote: post #185

It's interesting to me that most of Bellard's work is basically turning specs into C. His most important projects are ffmpeg (codec specs), qEmu (ISA specs), QuickJS (the EcmaScript spec), tinyC (the C spec), and his telecom company (LTE specs). I guess the pi calculations and neural network stuff are exceptions. Just to be clear, this doesn't make his work any less impressive. Highly performant codec and emulator im…

But I was told “spec implementators” were prime for LLM replacement

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

#224

Post by DiskoHexyl »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #198
newsclues wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without YouTube and porn, is there really an internet?

More like without video, is there still internet..... Absolutely yes. It's a tad hyperbolic I agree

For us- sure.

For most of the internet users- very likely no. Social media and video streaming IS the internet for the majority

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

#225

Post by fatata123 »

slmjkdbtl wrote: post #169
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.

[dead]

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

#226

Post by fdsfsdsd »

lambdaone wrote: post #160

Bellard is a genius. Carmack's modesty about his own genius is impressive too.

"He is almost certainly a better overall programmer than I am."

That is a work of art in and of itself. It's genius narcissism.

"almost certainly", "overall programmer", are we really going there? Are we 16?

Why even do the comparison? Fabrice is not a "programmer". He is an engineer. Programming is a medium he often works in and that medium is completely meaningless in and of itself. I would be offended if someone called me a "programmer".

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

#227

Post by baobabKoodaa »

miki123211 wrote: post #185

It's interesting to me that most of Bellard's work is basically turning specs into C. His most important projects are ffmpeg (codec specs), qEmu (ISA specs), QuickJS (the EcmaScript spec), tinyC (the C spec), and his telecom company (LTE specs). I guess the pi calculations and neural network stuff are exceptions. Just to be clear, this doesn't make his work any less impressive. Highly performant codec and emulator im…

> ffmpeg (codec specs)

if your mental model is that somebody writes codec specs and then fabrice bellard comes in and turns the specs into C, you are dead wrong. first of all, codecs are usually reverse-engineered, there is no spec. second of all, even when a well specified document describes the codec, that spec does not describe how to efficiently encode or decode with that codec. people like fabrice bellard develop the algorithms that do that.

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

#228

Post by slibhb »

fdsfsdsd wrote: post #226
lambdaone wrote: post #160

Bellard is a genius. Carmack's modesty about his own genius is impressive too.

"He is almost certainly a better overall programmer than I am." That is a work of art in and of itself. It's genius narcissism. "almost certainly", "overall programmer", are we really going there? Are we 16? Why even do the comparison? Fabrice is not a "programmer". He is an engineer. Programming is a medium he often works in and that medium is completely meaningless in and of itself. I would be offended if someone c…

Had the same reaction to Carmack's wording.

I don't agree about the distinction between programming and engineering; to me it's all programming, engineering is just the word we started using to make it sound higher status.

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

#229

Post by wswin »

miki123211 wrote: post #185

It's interesting to me that most of Bellard's work is basically turning specs into C. His most important projects are ffmpeg (codec specs), qEmu (ISA specs), QuickJS (the EcmaScript spec), tinyC (the C spec), and his telecom company (LTE specs). I guess the pi calculations and neural network stuff are exceptions. Just to be clear, this doesn't make his work any less impressive. Highly performant codec and emulator im…

Interesting observation, similar manner of work as Linus Torvalds. These guys implement existing ideas well, consistent and open, but are not inventors.

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

#230

Post by youarecringe »

fdsfsdsd wrote: post #221
raverbashing wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The psyop about "only shipping clean code" has been a big drag on projects On the real world, if it runs and solves their problem nobody gives a fucc. Period Props on him.

Watch how developers breathlessly defend code quality and stand tall ready to die on the hill against "AI slop". Craftsmanship, quality control, oh, it's all so, so important. No, it's absolutely vital to civilization. Then witness the amazing reversal when some member of The Tribe pushes unbelievably unreadable slop that works. Then we see his Ring getting kissed by all the betas: "if it work, it works". Pick a side…

Before AI Slop most code quality that ran in production was shit, that's the GP's point. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply did not have to come in contact with a wide variety of code in their job.
Post reply on HN