Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

Re:Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers... by YorkshireSeason on Thursday January 03, 2019 @10:01AM (#18815555)

   PL specialists are also pretty 
   good generalists.

It has also been my experience that people with a PL / compiler background are often great generalists. At Google I can think of at least the following:

Jeff Dean, Fergus Henderson, Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, Ben Gomes, David Stoutamire, David Bailey, Urs Hoelzle, Hal Abelson, Martin Abadi, Peter Norvig, Sanjay Ghemawat.

There are more but can't think of them off the top of my head. Chris Lattner is a non-Google example.

(As an aside, I see a similar phenomenon -- albeit at a much lower level of ability -- in my undergratuate students, and I've supervised a large number: top students almost always do well in / and have enjoyed their compilers course.) Why would that be the case? I can offer 3 hypotheses for discussion.

1. PL / compiler stuff is so trivial that everybody can be good at it.

2. PL / compiler stuff is so difficult that only the smartest can be good at it.

3. PL / compiler stuff forces you to think deeply about the most important tools in programming, namely the CPU and programming languages, and the bridge between them (the compiler).

I'm inclined to go for (3).

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Re:Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers... by seanmcdirmid on Thursday January 03, 2019 @11:14AM (#18816163)

People are often into PL because they are into programming and want to improve the tools and languages used for programming. For us, programming isn’t just a means to an end, it’s an end also.

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Re:Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers... by legulere on Thursday January 03, 2019 @05:51PM (#18820133)

Or 4.: Most problems are about transforming A to B like in a compiler. Many of the techniques in compilers are also applicable elsewhere.

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