Nobody's saying he isn't brilliant. But it's not possible to declare him as a "top 10" programmer without actually taking into account all the other programmers.

I think there are at least 10 other programmers that you've never heard of, but that have had as much or more impact on society in general as Carmack did.

Isn't it enough to just say he's brilliant? Ranking programmers is a fool's errand and serves no purpose other than to devalue other brilliant programmers.

(Also, I think measuring how brilliant someone is by how much impact they've had on society doesn't make much sense. Those are two entirely different things.)

I guess? I don't know. There are so many programmers that have had a much greater overall impact and such than Carmack has (which in no way takes away from Carmack's accomplishments!) that I find it hard to say either way.

That's part of why I think trying to rank people is a bit strange. I doubt that there is even much consensus on what it takes to be a "programming god" in the first place.

But I do agree that Carmack is great!