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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

#251

Post by Cthulhu_ »

andai wrote: post #246

Reading the list of Bellard's contributions, what strikes me is not the raw ability (although certainly there is that too!) but "damn, he knows how to pick 'em!" He keeps picking stuff to work on that ends up being insanely useful to a massive number of people. That seems somehow even more remarkable than the technical ability. Deciding what to work on might be the most important question in life.

This is the more striking thing. An meme I often repeat is that ideas are cheap, execution is key - there's a trope of "I have a great idea for an app, I just need a developer to do all the work", exacerbated with AI doing all the work.

But this guy is the opposite idea of that. In hindsight, sure, a library doing video is obvious. But the other ones? That's something else.

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

#253

Post by FpUser »

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…

>"But the code quality is speed. And reach. You can not advance, unless you can read the code"

I am not sure about "proper" definition of spaghetti code but speaking of long functions: if it is straight code that reads like a book and has no common parts to refactor for further reuse it is actually way more understandable and debuggable then mess of 3 liners spread among 20 files and 10 microservices running under k8s.

>", you can understand the model, you can not scale beyond a certain point"

The needed scaling is being determined by business needs / projection. If you implement service for some SMB that deals with few partners and limited set of business entities in database and architecture of said service addressing Google style of scalability with corresponding overheads and costs you are definitely committing a crime in relation to your client.

>"Its a great interview topic to filter this kind of candidate out of companies." -

basically making sure that instead of pragmatic engineer who can deliver functional and serviceable product to client in reasonable time with reasonable costs you will have them pay for spaceship built by architecture astronauts

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

#255

Post by athrowaway3z »

andai wrote: post #249
andai wrote: post #246

Reading the list of Bellard's contributions, what strikes me is not the raw ability (although certainly there is that too!) but "damn, he knows how to pick 'em!" He keeps picking stuff to work on that ends up being insanely useful to a massive number of people. That seems somehow even more remarkable than the technical ability. Deciding what to work on might be the most important question in life.

My guess would be the hueristic is "I want to do simple thing, why is it so hard?" (Modern computing has an overabundance of "DX tarpits".) Which is funny because, everyone has that experience, right? But then approximately nobody proceeds to do something about it. (Including most people who have the skills to make a difference!) Like, that's surprisingly mundane, and surprisingly actionable. --- If we distil it into…

I think you're underestimating the skill required to do it that well. Add 1 wrong feature and suddenly your simple project working around a DX tarpits is a new tarpit.

A lot of devs like building features.

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

#256

Post by j4k3 »

You remember when Micro Center had those portraits of computer greats hanging around the ceiling of their stores? I never noticed it until I looked up one day and saw Denis Ritchie, Vint Cerf, Grace Hopper, etc. The local Micro Center was re-done and I can't remember seeing the portraits, but this guy could be a candidate for a Micro Center banner.

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

#257

Post by rozab »

kzrdude wrote: post #245
backscratches wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be real?

If the rest of the tweet is ai-generated, why not the picture? In fact, if you ask me, I think the tweet's picture is semi-real; I trust the computer history museum to have the original and the tweet has an AI-upscaled photo with artificial details.

I think you are right, the checked pattern on the shirt is not directionally consistent

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

#258

Post by hnlmorg »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #190
hnlmorg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re ostensibly arguing the same thing I am though. Focusing on building the thing rather than designing the code to look pretty.

I haven't read the codebases in question but people were talking about spaghetti code, which would not be well-factored and would impede someone less talented from comprehending it or being able to change it effectively. I guess I'm saying there are code quality concerns which do affect velocity/maintainability and then there are superficial and stylistic issues. The former aren't just about some kind of beauty stand…

The comments about Ballard's code is very subjective. But if we take their comments at face value:

> which would not be well-factored and would impede someone less talented from comprehending it or being able to change it effectively.

Except the community did comprehend it and changed it effectively. Ballard hasn't maintained ffmpeg nor qemu for 20+ years.

> I guess I'm saying there are code quality concerns which do affect velocity/maintainability and then there are superficial and stylistic issues. The former aren't just about some kind of beauty standard, they're part of executing.

Which is why I'm saying we're basically arguing the same things. For a POC you get more velocity when focusing on proving that idea. I'm not saying zero effort should be spent on architecting the code. Just that you don't always know how best to organize it until you've had several revisions so developers shouldn't get too caught up trying to intellectualize the best internal layout. That can grow once the problem is better understood.

And I made this point because I felt the comparisons of one engineers POC to another engineers commercial release was unfair. They're completely different ends of the factory.

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

#259

Post by Calavar »

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…

To call out The Tribe as hypocritical, you first need The Tribe to have a consensus opinion. Agentic coding in particular has been very polarizing both on HN and in the developer community at large - there is no consensus opinion.

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

#260

Post by nixon_why69 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #258
nixon_why69 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the codebases in question but people were talking about spaghetti code, which would not be well-factored and would impede someone less talented from comprehending it or being able to change it effectively. I guess I'm saying there are code quality concerns which do affect velocity/maintainability and then there are superficial and stylistic issues. The former aren't just about some kind of beauty stand…

The comments about Ballard's code is very subjective. But if we take their comments at face value: > which would not be well-factored and would impede someone less talented from comprehending it or being able to change it effectively. Except the community did comprehend it and changed it effectively. Ballard hasn't maintained ffmpeg nor qemu for 20+ years. > I guess I'm saying there are code quality concerns which do…

Ok, yeah I hear you there and agree with basically everything. I've actually made those arguments in different contexts. Thumbs up emoji.
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