Who is the best programmer of our time?

 

I’ve seen a great many Computer Scientists talked about, and I think many are ultra talented. But I’d like to throw a name into the hat of who I consider to be (arguably) the best programmer of our time, as the question goes.

John Carmack

He pretty much defined doing a lot with a little in the gaming industry. For those unfamiliar, he was the co-founder and lead programmer for id Software - Wikipedia

The depth of cleverness and efficiency that went into games and engines sort of one after another (notably Doom and Quake) is just staggering. Doing everything from the engine, graphics, and with quake, the tcp/ip layer.

I know more than one person who went into software specifically because of inspiration from Carmack.

There is more to read about Carmack than would fit in a single answer, but there’s a ton of links in his

page. From the games, to some of the algorithms he wrote, he was just absolutely irreplaceable. A truly stellar programmer.