The Programming and Management Blog » Most Influential Programmers Results

Nick Halstead recently took a month-long poll over at his blog recently of what people consider the most influential programmers, and below is the result:

1st – Linus Torvalds

2nd – Alan turing

3rd – Dennis Ritchie

4th – Donald Knuth

5th – Rasmus Lerdorf

6th – John Carmack

7th – Bill Gates

8th – Richard Stallman

9th – Tim Berners-Lee

10th – Bjarne Stroustrup

I can’t say I think this list makes any sense at all. Firstly, while Linus is definitely influential, I think it’s a stretch to say he’s the most influential of all time. Rasmus Lerdorf, similarly created something interesting, but among the most influential of all time? Bill Gates’ influence is due more to his technical strategy and business acumen, not his programming.

His own top ten list is here:

1. John Carmack
2. Linus Torvalds
3. Tim Berners-Lee
4. Douglas Andrew Bel
5. Dennis Ritchie
6. Bram Cohen
7. asmus Lerdorf, Andi Gutmans & Zeev Suraski
8. Jez San
9. Bjarne Stroustrup
10. Richard Bartle & Roy Trubshaw

He cheated with all the “&”s. Of course, mine would look much different, I think. Remember – this is for all time. The criteria must be something other than simple fame, which seems to be the impetus for the poll-driven list. It also should be something other than riches. Influence that sprang from work as a programmer is the criteria. It might should even be two lists: influence over the world in general (or over multiple industries), and influence in the programming and software industry. Perhaps, put simply, the idea is people who have significantly changed the way we think or do things.

Anyway, here is my list. It is unorderd, as I just don’t know how I could possibly rank the individuals. They are from different times which posed different problems, had influence in different ways which has meant different things in modern times. One might be able to do very lose rankings, but a 1-10 ranking I think isn’t very sensible.

• Richard Stallman
• Guy Steele
• Tim Berners-Lee
• Brendan Eich
• Larry Wall
• Kernigan & Ritchie – OK, I’m cheating a little here too, because you really can’t separate these two in their achievements.
• David Wheeler
• Dan Bricklin
• Bram Cohen
• Donald Becker
• Bjarne Stroustrup
• James Gosling

Have a look at Wikipedia to see info about more programmers.