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Becoming a Famous Programmer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the lemme-tell-you-about-1=1 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GrokCode analyzes more than 200 famous programmers to determine what types of projects made them famous. Inventing a programming language, game, or OS ranked among the top projects likely to lead to fame. Most programmers became famous through their work on only one project. The article also shows that among famous programmers, the ratio of males to females is much larger than among normal programmers."

2 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Rule #1, get a good publicist by petes_PoV · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Looking at the actual list, most of the people cited weren't the sole originators of a work, merely the figurehead. In fact I haven't heard of most of them - or their "products", so to call them famous is greatly exaggerating their actual obscurity.

    For example, there's one guy credited with Microsoft Word. Now I'd bet my pension that he hasn't written every version single-handed. Likewise Larry Ellison as the creator of Oracle - no. There are thousands of people who create each version of Oracle, not simply one guy.

    This list is too simplistic to have any value, and time spent analysing it is largely wasted.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  2. Re:Can you think of any famous female programmers? by KGIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In reading your post I was sort of struck with an odd thought so, well, I'll share.

    There really aren't that many famous programmers. There aren't any at all other than perhaps Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and they may not be considered programmers by the masses. They are famous to you, to me, and to the /. crowd but we're such a minority in the grand scheme of things that they are only famous to a very small subset of the population.

    If you ask anyone who George W. Bush is they will know. They will know who Paris Hilton is. They will probably know Madonna, Brad Pitt, and more. If we go outside of our social circle they are unlikely to know anyone on that list.

    Mirriam-Webster defines fame as widely known. The second definition is honored for achievement but being on Wikipedia isn't really an honor I don't think. Gates and Hoare were knighted, I suppose they might be considered famous but, then again, who other than us knows who Hoare is?

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."