The picture appears to be real, if we trust this source: https://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/january/6/
anyone have a free photo for wikipedia?
I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
281–290 of 488 posts
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#282Earlier 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…
>For example, if you’re building a proof of concept (POC), then it’s more important to prove the idea than it is to define the architecture.
I have tried to do this for POCs (just hacking everything together), and I always get stuck very quickly. Then until I figure out some sort of architecture for what I'm supposed to be doing I can't proceed. It's like, once I have the first step (of several) of the a POC working, I literally cannot think of how to implement the second one until the first one is somewhat well organized
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll continue to do my part as time allows, also curious. Anyway, if enough flag the top [like I did], it'll collapse.
You found a comment to flag in this thread? Didn’t catch rulebreaking myself.
Sure, I didn't restrict to rule breaking. As I already said, it serves the function of compressing the conversation others complained about.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#284Bellard 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…
1. I don't believe anyone in their right mind thinks that ffmpeg is still maintained and developed by a single person, and definitely not by Fabrice 2. Spaghetti code or not matters very little, especially in the beginning, before you even know or understand the scope of the project and what it can become in the future. You can indeed refactor code when you understand the requirements better, and it's great that it's…
> 2. Spaghetti code or not matters very little, especially in the beginning, before you even know or understand the scope of the project and what it can become in the future.
Demonstrably false. Here and on Reddit, everyone will dogpile on a project to call it slop and flag it if they see code smells they don't like. Unless it was written by someone they already know and like from twitter devgooning, in which case it's amazing and everyone should use it.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#285First 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…
Sad that him can't show the same respect for "Burguer" Rebecca Ann Heineman.
err?
afaik Bellard never had any beef with Burger Becky. Both are legendary programmers, but somewhat different eras.
I have no idea what you're suggesting.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#286Bellard 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…
> due to FFmpeg back then lacking any framework for code sharing between components and codecs
Funny, I remember this being completely different; FFmpeg bundled ffserver, which transcoded to a bunch of codecs at the same time (sharing motion search and everything) precisely to demonstrate how similar the codecs were and how much could be shared. (Of course, that could easily be spaghetti, but not spaghetti for non-code-sharing reasons.) All on the 400MHz-class machines we had at the time. Do I remember wrong? I haven't looked at these old releases in forever.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#287My jaw dropped when I read this guy wrote ffmpeg AND QEMU!!? Thats insane levels of talent and capability.
I remember looking through the source for QEMU and it appeared monstrous in its scale. Dude is a legend, no wonder Carmack is complimenting him.
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
You found a comment to flag in this thread? Didn’t catch rulebreaking myself.
Sure, I didn't restrict to rule breaking. As I already said, it serves the function of compressing the conversation others complained about.
Downvotes may offer that function too, I think.
Thought the flag was “hey this guy can’t call me a doodoohead with no ‘J/K’ at the end!”, rule break like rudeness or spam or slop
Guess I better read the rules
Edit: IDK why I can’t always downvote. Sometimes see it on a comment’s permalink page. Guessing some karma factors at play (lifetime upvotes received per user, can’t downvote more senior users maybe)
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#289Reading 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…
> "DX tarpits"
Google shows no results for this term so i'm guessing its your own short hand for something hard?
Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer
#290Earlier 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…
This is a case of tribalism, absolutely zero rationality and people will do mental gymnastics or get nasty if you try to force it. These people have decided that they HATE AI, and LOVE gooning on famous programmers, and public stances they take will support that, logic or consistency be damned.