Lot of comments from people who feel insulted in their profession, it seems. Don’t take it so seriously, guys, it’s only Jeff Atwood’s opinion we’re talking about.
Personally, I know Steele, Knuth, Thompson and Zawinski (well, not personally). And of these, I only know Knuth on a level beyond his works, and Zawinski only because of his personality (and the infamous regex quote). Steele and Thompson I only know as “the creators of”. The other names mean nothing to me.
I think whether or not you know programmers by name can be pretty random. For example, turns out Brendan Eich created Javascript. When I read this it triggers an “oh yeah, I’ve seen his name once” response for me, but I certainly wouldn’t know Brendan Eich from Adam if I met him, nor do I have any idea what his views on programming are, even though I’m quite familiar with Javascript. This is simply because my work may involve Javascript, but it will not involve knowing the mind of the guy who created it, nor do I feel this is particularly important. It has no more than curiosity value, when you’re wondering “gee, I wonder why feature X turned out the way it did”.
Pascal, Leibniz, Babbage, Turing: if these names mean nothing to people it means they don’t care about computing history, which in itself says nothing about their qualities as programmers. Being a history buff may demonstrate interest, but not being one doesn’t demonstrate that you’re a worthless code monkey.
It may well be that you need to study the creators “in the art of software development”. For the craft of software development, though, studying their output seems to suffice if you’re not striving to become an artist yourself.
If like me you thought that Jeff’s “no-hire” quote was arrogant nonsense but are curious to know just who most of these people are anyway, rather than looking them up on Wikipedia the best thing to do is just go to the book’s web page here: http://www.codersatwork.com/. There is a brief one page summary of each of the people mentioned there.
To take just the first name in the list as an example, I have a book on optimizing compilers. I looked up Fran Allen in it and yes she’s there in the history section on page 3 along with a host of other names. No disrespect but even for geeks she’s hardly a household name.
The next one, Joe Armstrong, is “famous” for creating a language 99.9% of us have never used (and probably never will). Etc.
I’m a bit dissappointed at the tone from such respected programmer bloggers lately.
I like these guys and read their posts, but really, what’s up this week? Can’t Joel and Jeff sell us on a book without being so condescending about it?
I’m getting a little tired of hearing from my mentors that either I agree with their new revelations or I’m simply not cut out to be a good programmer any more.
Coders at Work may very well be a good book but these guys are really turning me off of it.
As stated many times above your claims are ludicrous. Not to mention elitist and completely wrong. Even mentioning the fact that not knowing those programmers so that people will read up on them is crazy. Its actually these types of statements that have kept me from trying to find a job programming, when in fact I am a pretty decent programmer compared to those that work in the same company as I do. I typically read your blog and I am typically right with you Mr. Atwood, but on this one I am going to have to say you’re an idiot. Sadly I will read many posts to follow with great skepticism…guess thats the risk you take when you make stupid claims.
I love how every time you post something highly flammable there are 536253 posts of people saying that they hate you and will never ever ever read your posts again… Every time!! This is better than watching soccer game fights.
The list was great, it makes me want to quit my job to do something more meaningful with my life.
Josh,
Thanks for the link. So it looks like Joel cared not to point out the little significant fact that jwz wasn’t responsible about the Netscape Navigator 4 disaster, while he did all the good work before the event. Who’d think that? All he said was “this dude worked at that browser and he refused to use helpful stuff like C++ templates”.
On the other hand I’m going to defend the part I wrote about NN6 being responsible for the vanishing of Netscape. I remember Gecko and I remember hating it. So not everything I wrote was wrong, even if I’m a jerk and don’t check my facts.
Group A: People that didn’t know someone in the list rant with “THIS IS RIDDIKULUS”
Group B: People that did know at least someone in the list, take it as the joke it’s meant to be, or at least somewhat partially agree with Mr. Atwood.
I think Jeff is just saying he expects people with a worthy degree and are passionate about what they do must have heard of one of the people in the list - and I agree.
If you find yourself in “Group A” that just tells me that you didn’t get a worthy education (or you didn’t pay attention while you were suppposed to be getting it) or you don’t really give a crap about your profession.
Ken Thompson for the Unix fans
Joshua Bloch for the java crowd
Knuth - for everyone
Unfortunately we missed an interview with Edsger W. Dijkstra, now that would have got me to buy the book (actually nothing would, I already have 3 in the queue and they never seem to get opened).
If somebody doesn’t know MY name, then it’s an immediate no-hire. Also, if they don’t know what Bill Buckner signifies, then they’re outta here too :-o
"If the next programmer you interview can’t identify at least one of the programmers interviewed in Coders at Work and tell you roughly what they’re famous for …
… I’d say that’s an immediate no-hire."
huh?
I don’t know if you do it intentionally Jeff but lately you’ve been writing blog posts that are overall good but you are including in them one little sentence or paragraph that makes me go “WTF?!”.
I’m not sure if you do it to get people to write more comments but it’s certainly working.
I now realize I wouldn’t want to work for you. Laying such minefields is not only a lame approach to interviewing but it will put a very bad taste in the mouths of potential employees. What, are you going to make sure my socks are color-coordinated? The weight you seem to place on your personal opinions is a reflection of how your ego has gotten the best of you. And stop patting yourself on the back with your website. We all know by now - good for you. Get back to writing intriguing, thought-provoking entries. My 2.5 cents.
