HN Explorer

Ask HN: Which developers do you closely follow?

551 points by krptos ↗ HN
The one thing that keeps me inspired, more than anything, is following up with the activities of people whom I consider as masters.

When it comes to programming, which developers do you closely follow?

Please include blog/website/github links.

A couple of my favourites:

[TJ Holowaychuk](https://github.com/tj) - because he's a wizard. The number of premium open source projects he's been a part of, is just astounding.

[Dan Abramov](https://github.com/gaearon) - First hit on his redux talk, then drifted to his blog posts. I like his clarity of expressing the why's and how's.

275 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 299 ms ] thread
osullivj
I follow the legendary Jeff Vroom [1] and his stratacode project [2]. I was lucky enough to work with Jeff in the 90s, when he was architect of the AVS/Express visualisation system. He went on to Art Technology Group, then Adobe, and is now independent. AVS/Express had the best visual programming system I've ever used, and was way ahead of its time.

[1] https://github.com/jeffvroom [2] https://github.com/stratacode

theparanoid
Fabrice Bellard, http://www.bellard.org
mschaef
Seconded. This developer has an absolutely amazing output and corpus of works.
joe563323
very true. I just wish he gives some video interviews. Just would love to watch such an amazing productive guy.
unwind
Meta: it's a bit funny when the article itself sets the lead by posting non-functional Markdown on this site. I see replies are joining in, too.
yoz-y
Still, the beauty of markdown is that even if it does not get parsed, it is still legible.
LukeB_UK
Beware of putting people on pedestals. Far better is to just follow people who do cool stuff. They don't have to be a "master" to do something cool that will inspire you.
mseebach
It's a bit off-topic, but I keep coming back to this song, I find it very inspiring in its simplicity. "Try this at home" by Frank Turner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knvY3vxsA

Key lines from the lyrics:

In bedrooms across England // and all the Western world // there’s posters and there’s magazines // but the music isn’t ours

So tear down the stars now // and take up your guitars // come on folks and try this at home

Let’s stop waiting around // for someone to patronize us // Let’s hammer out a sound // that speaks of where we’ve been // Forget about the haircuts // the stupid skinny jeans // the stampedes and the irony // the media-fed scenes

Do listen to the whole thing, it's a great song.

[deleted]
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sapeien
Agree with this. I think that many of the people named here may be more talented at marketing their ideas and themselves within certain developer communities. Their work may seem popular and exciting, but are lost in abstract thought and have little to no connection to the real world. Rarely will you hear about the programmers who write software for the things people rely on every day, these are the unsung heroes.
CiPHPerCoder
Also: If you don't find your name on this thread, that doesn't mean that you're a nobody and that your work is unappreciated. It only means that the sort of folks who'd respond to a thread like this in earnest haven't noticed you, which probably isn't a reflection on your value to the {community, industry, world} (select appropriate).
ritchiea
Hopefully all of our work is appreciated by the people near us but it's really ok to be a "nobody" as in you aren't famous or even regarded as a "dev to be followed." There shouldn't be the expectation that to be a professional who's good at your job and solves problems you should also be on the list of popular devs people follow.
LyndsySimon
My introduction to the world of professional software development was meeting one of the idols and hanging out with him for two days before realizing who he was. We've kept in touch since then and I now consider him one of my best friends.

I agree about putting people on pedestals, and my own experiences speak to that. The person I once saw in a very idealized way I now see as fully a person, complete with faults and failures.

I would argue that there are no "masters" - or rather, that there are very few of them, and those that I might consider such are "just people" too.

CiPHPerCoder
> I would argue that there are no "masters" - or rather, that there are very few of them, and those that I might consider such are "just people" too.

Mastery does not obviate humanity.

The most gifted (which I define as the cross-section between talented and practiced) people I know tend to care more about the content of your character than your technical prowess.

contravariant
>The most gifted (which I define as the cross-section between talented and practiced) people I know tend to care more about the content of your character than your technical prowess.

Odd choice of words, wouldn't it make more sense to switch the meaning of 'talented' and 'gifted'? A 'gift' is something you receive without sacrifice, while a 'talent' needs to be honed.

CiPHPerCoder
Talent is innate.

Skill is practiced.

If you're passionate enough about something that you happen to have a natural affinity for in order to hone your skills, I call that a gift.

reitanqild
Not a native speaker but I also find that odd: I always thought talented referred to the parable about the servants who were given talents, and as such I would expect that talented and gifted would be almost the same.
CiPHPerCoder
Disclaimer: I shouldn't be regarded as any sort of authority on the English language.

I sort of decide what words mean to me, publish them, and then stick to those definitions (while pointing anyone confused towards the published definitions).

There's probably a better way to classify these ideas without tripping over other peoples' lexicographic pedantry, but this is the Internet and you're always going to find a contrary opinion no matter what you do. The winning move is to not play.

Thus:

  talent: natural affinity
  skill:  aptitude gained through effort
  gifted: a person who is both talented and skilled in an area
contravariant
I just found it weird that you chose the word 'gift' as something less innate than a 'talent'. It's also interesting that 'talent' used to have the meaning 'A desire or inclination for something', which is similar to your use of the word gift.

Anyway, I won't say the way you're using those words is wrong, language is after all pretty flexible, it just didn't seem like the most obvious choice.

btown
Sometimes pedestals are justified, though. For instance, Dan Abramov (mentioned by OP) is not only one of the most respected voices in React patterns and best practices, he also works at Facebook and has an outsized voice in advocating for development priorities internally; in fact, he is the secretary at the core group meetings [0]. What he retweets [1] is the closest indication we can get to what the core group will have in mind when choosing what design patterns to best support going forward, in both performance and syntax. And so "What Would Dan Abramov Do?" is a tongue-in-cheek meme at the office, but it's also a helpful indicator to help future-proof our choices of React patterns.

[0] https://github.com/reactjs/core-notes - see, for instance, https://github.com/reactjs/core-notes/blob/master/2016-12/de...

[1] https://twitter.com/dan_abramov

hugozap
I wish more developers had his mindset and put their ego aside. He is totally professional and open to ideas even from "competing" technologies.
lemiffe
I've been putting together a list of hackers, bug hunters, star developers (or notably popular at the organisations they work for), and a few IT/OPSEC/SIGINT style companies (and aggregators).

Still much work to be done, but feel free to check it out: https://twitter.com/lemiffe/lists/tophackers/members

vanderZwan
Fabien Sanglard knows how to do code reviews of old games in such a way that I feel like I understand what he wrote. Until I close the tab, of course.

http://fabiensanglard.net/

aelmeleegy
I feel someone should include Marco Arment [twitter.com/arment] in this list. I don't know if he's a "master," but I have found his journey of building one-man projects to be inspiring.

Also, Maciej Ceglowski [twitter.com/pinboard]. His twitter is hilarious, even though I don't personally subscribe to his service.

jcalabro
Jon Blow: A game designer and programmer behind the popular titles "Braid" and "The Witness". He's currently working on making a new programming language and chronicling it on YouTube. - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCuoqzrsHlwv1YyPKLuMDUQ
cableshaft
He's the main one I follow too, although I haven't kept up on his programming language progress (although I should get on that). He gives very interesting lectures though. I had the good fortune to see him give two in person at the Game Developer's Conference in 2008, and that was actually before I knew who he was and before Braid came out. He actually showed a tiny piece of Braid during the lecture, although it didn't hit me how clever it was until it was released and I got to see the whole thing.

Still working through The Witness, but it's amazing. Put about 40 hours into it so far. It's the best video game I played last year.

jackmott
He did a couple of streams recently using his language to work on a new game.

At the very least it will be C/C++ where you don't have to type () around if expressions. So there is that. :D

cableshaft
Cool, I'll definitely check those out. I am looking to start making video games again, although it seems like this is probably in too early of a state still, so I was planning on refreshing my knowledge of Unity. But it doesn't hurt to watch those streams, and I look forward to when it makes sense to do serious development in it.
psyc
Every time I get stuck on a project, I watch this video. It's about games, but IMO a lot of it applies to software projects in general, especially MVPs. How to ship something that works before it collapses under its own complexity. I think the bit about remembering to optimize for developer effort is gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM

davidwparker
I like Jonathan Blow too. He has a twitch.tv channel https://www.twitch.tv/naysayer88 which he livestreams coding from time-to-time as well.
lj3
In the last week, it's gone from 'time-to-time' to 'multiple times a day'. Great stuff, but it's getting very hard to keep up with.
0xFFC
Steve https://twitter.com/steveklabnik

He is awesome human being.

Shicholas
def concur! coolest stranger on the Internet
mingyeow
Yes, Steve is the best person on the internet indeed! Always outspoken, always protective, never nasty
ad_hominem
> always protective, never nasty

Nobody's perfect

https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/

steveklabnik
Yes, this is an incident I still regret deeply. I probably think about it once a week. It's one of the reasons that I'm a bit different these days than I am back then; I didn't want this to happen ever again.
[dead] Antithis
As far as I can tell you're just highly emotional.
sctb
Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News—no personal attacks like this.
steveklabnik
Thank you (and to everyone else in this thread) <3
merb
ktoso: https://github.com/ktoso - he's not human, but If you want to do anything on the java/scala ecosystem, you need to follow him.
gtrubetskoy
I recommend following Donald Knuth, the late Richard Stevens, Brian Kernighan, Douglas Comer, Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and many others I can't think of at the moment. By "follow" I mean read their books.