The Most Legendary Programmers Of All Time

Free Beginner Programming Course coursecareers.com/a/aaronjack Free JavaScript Cheat Sheet dontforgetjavascript.com/ Free Coding Advice (We'll Send you a Video) aaronjack.dev/

Terry Davis is the only S Tier programmer to have existed. The world couldn’t even handle him so it had to deallocate him from memory.

I mean Linus Torvald also made GIT which has had more impact on modern programming than any single language by itself.

Chris Sawyer definitely deserves to be here. He is the person who created Rollercoaster Tycoon using x86 assembly language all by himself.

Seems to me that some of the most successful people in their fields never even tried to become successful. They just loved what they were doing.

Terry Davis had a level of intelligence that we can’t even calculate.

I think very old programmers like Richard Stallman (founder of GNU project), Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson also deserve a mention here. I think some of those even received the Turing Award which, as people say, is the noble prize of computer science.

Linux and Git pretty much covers the entirety of the internet , Doesn't it?

Linus Torvalds: 1000x Dev Me: 0.5x Dev

What about Terry Davis? The guy created his own OS all by himself, a feat almost nobody can achieve. He deserves a spot on this list.

How you gonna have Notch on here but no Stallman, Terry Davis, or Wozniak?

I can't believe you didn't mention Ken Thompson here. He created Unix, which Linus basically copied. Ken wrote the first version of Unix in assembly btw, in 3 weeks. He created Regex as we know it; He created the B programming language, which Dennis Ritchie added static typing to, which made C; he created Ed text editor, (which later evolved to Vi, then Vim) which changed text editing; He created Belle, a the first chess machine to achieve master level, before AI was even a thing; He created UTF-8 (with Rop Pike) which is pretty much the standard text encoding today. And later in his career he helped design the Go Programming language (wrote the first compiler which was used until Go 1.5). Go has become the standard language for cloud computing and networked applications. How do you mention legendary programmers of all time without mentioning Ken Thompson? Man's work has probably had the most transformative effect on how people worked with computers, time and time again.

And here I am trying hard to code a todo list without struggling

For me Linus Torvalds is the GOAT. It’s one thing to make a world changing software once like Minecraft or Doom. But it’s another thing to do it TWICE with both Linux and Git Linus once said “I like C because when I write in C, I can see in my mind the assembly it will generate”. As someone who writes code for a living, I respect that because I know what it takes to get that level of understanding

Because of this, I've decided to create another taste of linux to build another minecraft but in 4d quality :D Just kidding, still learning JS for about 26yrs

I've had the privilege of working with a few truly genius developers over the years, it's crazy how dumb they can make you feel when you see them working. I wouldn't say Notch has created anything particularly impressive technically, but he's a proficient coder who is also very creative, which is far less common than most people realize. Most developers are very technical but lack true creativity, and most creative people aren't technically skilled enough to be programmers. There are always exceptions of course.

Nobody is talking about Chris Sawyer, who crated RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language by himself

Regarding Linux, credit should also be given to Andrew Tanenbaum. Tanenbaum created Minix, a mini Unix variant which inspired Torvalds to create Linux. Tanenbaum didn't come from CS. He holds degree in Physics and Ph.D in Astrophysics. But he had written several books in Computer Architecture and Computer Networks which were widely used in colleges/universities, and like I said, created Minix. There are other Physics guys who became popular in CS fields : Dennis Richie, the creator of C language, has a degree in Physics and Applied Math. He also coworked with Ken Thompson to create Unix while working at Bell Labs. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of WWW/HTTP was a physics guy who created it while working at CERN.

Terry Davis is... likely at the very top of the heap. Imagine developing what he did while fighting Schizophrenia without any real assistance, meds, or counseling. It might be true that the line between genius and insanity is measured in success... and what Terry developed is a feat like none other. I wonder what he could have done without all that chaos in his head.

I have seen other videos about legendary programmers, but you have good presence and speak at a good pace. I subscribed. I like that you focused on their humanity. Truly beautiful.