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The World's Best Living Programmers

Posted by timothy on from the yeah-but-do-you-have-his-rookie-card? dept.

itwbennett (1594911) writes "How do you measure success? If it's by Stack Overflow reputation, Google engineer Jon Skeet is the world's best programmer. If it's winning programming competitions, Gennady Korotkevich or Petr Mitrechev might be your pick. But what about Linus Torvalds? Or Richard Stallman? Or Donald Knuth? ITworld's Phil Johnson has rounded up a list of what just might be the world's top 14 programmers alive today."

5 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. How would you know? by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You only know if you get to see their code, and/or if they are a public figure.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Github Followers by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you go by Github followers, Linus is pretty up-there. Linus and Stallman aren't great just for their programming abilities; their capability to manage their projects so effectively is a huge factor in their success.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  3. Stack Overflow reputation by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stack Overflow reputation indicates that you're a 1337 documentation writer, not necessarily that you know how to program.

  4. Re:No exhaustive.. by SirGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ken Thompson - Also creator of the C Programming Language.

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    UPS Sucks
  5. Re:No exhaustive.. by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kernighan wasn't involved until much later, according to Ritchie's own history of the language. C was a direct successor to B, which was Thompson's brainchild, and he was directly involved in much of the development of C, though Ritchie was the lead on it.

    People often assume it was Kernighan and Ritchie because they co-authored the seminal book on the language (the eponymous K&R white book), but that book didn't even get published until almost 6 years after C was already complete.