Talk:List of programmers.html



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Steve Jobs

According to Steve Wosniak's website, Steve Jobs really didn't do any of the programming for Apple, so although he did have programming jobs before Apple, seeing as being Apple's co-founder is what Jobs is notable for, should he still be included on the list of programmers as he isn't particularly notable as a programmer? Applepwnz

The article is about "...programmers notable for their contributions to software...", not something that can be said about Mr. Jobs, thus I will remove the entry. --Aleistad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleistad (talk • contribs) 18:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Programming language designers

Maybe we should create a separated page for language designers? There are many persons listed only for languages they invented, maybe they wrote the original implementation, but creating a language is rather different from being a programmer. This also would help clean up a bit, I see at least four or five 'co-creators' of PHP for example. Lost Goblin 18:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Eric S. Raymond

um. In the list of famous progarmmers, shouldn't ESR be credited with the sotware he created, not his ideology? um. what software did he do? - Asa

In addition to fetchmail, he wrote a large portion of the code that ships with Emacs, including the version-control and debugging modes. ("According to RMS's credit list, I [esr] appear to have more Emacs Lisp code in the standard Emacs distribution than anyone else but him.") He has a big list at: http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.241.252 (talk) 22:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

ESR is not a famous programmer by any stretch of the imagination. He is a famous commenter and encyclopedist of the hacker movement, and hacks himself, but his programming alone certainly wouldn't have made him famous. --AxelBoldt

Actually, I beg to differ; today he might be more famous as an advocate, but what put him in the spotlight originally and gave him the bona fides was writing fetchmail. He's done plenty of other programming since as well. --LDC

Ok, fetchmail is a solid piece of work, no question about it, but look at the other works listed: Unix, C, gcc, perl, Linux. They seem to be a lot more substantial than fetchmail. Also consider the projects not listed: Apache, Samba, Python. I think ESR derived most of his fame from the Hacker's dictionary before the open source thing started. --AxelBoldt

If writing a language (C, Perl) is sufficient to be on this list, ESR goes on here just for that. He did the first INTERCAL compiler. ;-) Seriously, though, I think he should be here. --Pinkunicorn

I agree with you AB. i think ESR should be removed. Also: did he even originate fetchmail? I thought he just carried it on for someone else? - Asa

ESR is a programmer who is famous, so at least technically he fits; he also fits the description on the page. Bill Gates could be counted too. I program for a living and couldn't have named the Samba guy on a bet, so I wouldn't say ESR isn't famous enough given the current set.

Removed Samba guy. im fairly determined to keep this list kinda elite  ;). -- Asa

I'm far from a fan of ESR, and I'd argue that his programming contributions are insignificant compared with giants like Ken Thompson and Tony Hoare. But I think it's undeniable that he is a famous computer programmer. I don't think the page has a requirement that the programmer be famous for programming, and I don't think it's desirable for Wikipedia for it to have suchb a requirement. Doesn't Woodrow Wilson qualify for inclusion on a list of teachers, however insignificant his contributions to teaching might be? -- Dominus 23:04, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Actually the page does have the requirement that the programmer be famous for software contribution. It says "This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions". So I do believe ESR should be removed. As it was noted, he is not famous for his programming. His largely self-claimed hackerdom is also disputed. However he should be listed in Free Software authors since that page doesn't have an "elite" requirement. I've added him there. Should we remove him from here? Sam 20:29, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Famous?

Moved the list of famous programmers to its own page. also copied this talk to the talk on that page - Asa

What did Hopper do? -- Asa

Grace Murray Hopper isn't famous as such for writing anything -- she was one of the earliest pioneer programmers, in the 1940s and 1950s. She was one of the first people to come up with the idea of a programming language (as opposed to writing in machine code); she developed several early programming language compilers for the UNIVAC I, and she was heavily influential in the development of COBOL.

Also, I'd but Andrew Tridgell back. He's more famous as a Programmer than others still on the list: i.e. Sid Meier! He may be famous as a game designer, but not primarily as a programmer. -- Simon J Kissane

ok, cool. so i got rid of Meier too, as i was not aware of that. lets keep it to programmers not designers or thinkers! Any other non-progamming "thinkers" in the list?-- Asa

Putting a definition of "famous" here isn't appropriate; that's just a personal opinion, so I removed it. Likewise, I put back ESR, because he is a serious programmer, and author of very influential books on the process of programming. He certainly belongs here more than Berners-Lee does. I don't think quibbling over who belongs here and who doesn't is at all useful. This isn't a popularity contest, it's just a list of links people might want to know about. I'd put Bentley and Kernihan here too, as influential authors. Just because the software they wrote was not something the public used, they are hardcore master programmers and influential in the field. --LDC

Well, in that case Bill Gates should be on the list, because he *was* a programmer (twenty or more years ago, of course) and he *is* famous, and people *would* be interested in his bio.

While we're naming names, how about Dave Cutler (lead designer of VMS and Windows NT, if I recall correctly). Tim Patterson (who wrote what became MS-DOS), maybe?

Cutler was already there. I added Gates, Bricklin, Wozniak, and Kapor. I don't know much about Patterson. --LDC

Another name we should add - Ada Lovelace, who worked with Charles Babbage on the design of the Analytical Engine, and designed a bunch of programs for the machine before Robert Merkel

We can't reasonably expect to list all programmers on this page -- just the most famous ones. I would question the two authors of Sinclair ZX Spectrum games, unless there is more history that I am unaware of (Bo Jangeborg, Jeff Minter, Andrew/Philip Oliver). Eric Raymond definitely does not belong -- if we list him, we'd need to list hundreds or thousands of others (look through packages.debian.org, and see the number of programs bigger than fetchmail are there alone -- add in software for other OSes, and you've got a metric crapload). He was never famous for programming, just for writing. I'd also suggest removing Egon Zakrajsek, unless he's done something outstanding not listed. On a meta level, does it make sense to maintain this sort of list? It seems like there's too much temptation to play favorites/add people one knows/etc. - 24.131.135.50 11 Feb 2004

In practice, it's going to be limited to those people who either have bios or are likely to have bios when somebody gets around to writing them. Non-famous will typically get their bios deleted and the link removed from here in turn. Trust the wiki process, let it flow through you and guide your every action... :-) Stan 01:04, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Peter Deutsch and L. Peter Deutsch

The item about Peter Deutsch claims he wrote the QED text editor. On the Qed page it says it was written by L. Peter Deutsch. Furthermore Peter Deutsch links to a politician. Therefore I am merging the two items; it seems clear the "Peter Deutsch" listed is in fact L. Peter Deutsch. Sam 20:10, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Greatest programmer category

Anybody have ever heard of Bill Joy ? or Dennis Ritchie ? or Bjarne Stroustroup ? You should recognize these names ..! These are in the greatest programmer category. - 199.84.139.56 30 Aug 2002

they have been added.

Since when are Bill Joy or Bjarne Stroustroup great programmers? have you read any of their code? Lost Goblin 10:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Being the authors of vi and the first C++ compiler, respectively, are pretty serious claim to programmer fame, whether the code is pretty or not. Where does it say "great" anyway?

On another note, what program did Steve Jobs ever write? Nasorenga 08:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Article Name

suggestions for title:

• List of notable software programmers
• List of notable software developers
• List of notable computer programmers

- User:Rj 22 Mar 2004

Words like 'notable' are not to be used in list names. see Wikipedia:lists

Egon Zakrajšek

... "pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran"

According to wiki page about mr. Zakrajšek, he actually didn't write any program that made a difference... If every professor that ever wrote a textbook on programming or computer science edns up here this list will become too large and won't have any meaning. So, his name should be removed from this list...

Iltestagrande 14:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It's deleted.

nicola 13:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Non-Notable Programmers?

I've noticed some programmers listed here that I've never heard of nor did they turn up anything paticular on Google. The programmer(s) in question are under S and their last names, as you will notice, do not end with an S and do not have any links or references, unlike the others, and one even contains an email address.

Remzi Kurshumliu - Programmer (Expert in C# programming and Human Computer Interaction) Chand, Naresh (nchand04@hotmail.com)- Programmer (Artificial Intelligence - Crow Theory)

Therefore I think it would be in the best intrest of Wikipedia's notability policy to remove these names since they look like self-promotion and stand out from the rest of the article.

--204.116.124.122 00:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This page is the recipient of "CV spam" i.e. people posting their own names because they feel they deserve recognition for writing a program. I am of the opinion that this page should only contain people who already the subject of an article in Wikipedia. akaDruid (talk) 16:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Lillian Schwartz

Lillian Schwartz - Pioneered the foundation of computer graphics during the times of the IBM/360 at Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill in NJ. Check youtube for some of her early computer graphical work. Also check here wikipedia Bio. She is an emmy award winning computer artist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.174.182.109 (talk) 13:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Bruce Schneier

"Bruce Schneier (born 15 January 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on computer security and cryptography, and is the founder and chief technology officer of BT Counterpane, formerly Counterpane Internet Security, Inc." [copied from: http://en.wikipedia.org/en/Bruce_Schneier —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.108.200.167 (talk) 17:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ron Avitzur

"After Apple cancelled his project, Graphing Calculator he, together with his friend Greg Robbins, continued to work for free, sneaking into the building every day in order to continue development of the software.[1] When completed, the software was so impressive that Apple executives used it as their standard demonstration of the then-new PowerPC chips, and agreed to ship the calculator with Mac OS 9." [copied from: http://en.wikipedia.org/en/Ron_Avitzur In addition to creating a unique, powerful, and educational piece of software, the story was so noteworthy that it became a story featured in both technical and non-technical press (there was even a segment on "This American Life", a national radio program). Androider (talk) 22:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Alexandre Julliard

What about Alexandre Julliard. He is the lead developer of Wine and has been since 1994. Fsamuels (talk) 02:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Added! — Alan De Smet | Talk 02:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Daniel Bolstad

Neither Daniel Bolstad, nor his alleged Digital Ray 06-94 converter, seems to have made much of an impression elsewhere on the web. I suppose the entry is fake and would like to see it removed, if nothing substantial is presented in the Daniel Bolstad page (which doesn't exist at the time of writing this). --Rootmoose (talk) 16:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)