I don't think anyone here means top 10 in a strict ranking sense of the phrase. But I think Carmack very easily has a place amongst the pantheon of programming gods, whether you measure by 'brilliance' (whatever that means) or impact. He has done a ridiculous amount of innovation over the years, and set the pace for game engine and real-time rendering development for something like 20 years.
> I think Carmack very easily has a place amongst the pantheon of programming gods, whether you measure by 'brilliance' (whatever that means) or impact.
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!
Like who? I can think of Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Linux Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Richard Stallman, Edsger Dijkstra, Bill Gates, John Carmack. Maybe Alan Turing. With the exception of the real OG's I think Carmack fits in that list quite nicely.
..and hundreds or thousands of others, that signed some NDA, worked on e.g. mission-critical systems (where bugs as the ones discussed here would cost you your job) and who never got to show their work, which is OP's point.
Re:Quake's lightning gun bug explained
by Eisenstein on Friday June 16, 2023 @06:28AM
(#36354263)
I mean, if you are going to be culturally impactful, I think the most important prerequisite is that you are allowed to talk about what you create...
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.)