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andymorton
September 11th, 2010, 10:21 AM
I don't know why but I woke up this morning thinking about this and who people on here would pick. Apologies if it's been asked before but I couldn't find it after searching the forums.

I'm going with (in no particular order) -

1. Charles Babbage
2. Alan Turing
3. Sir Tim Berners-Lee
4. Linus Torvalds
5. Richard Stallman

andy :)

Barrucadu
September 11th, 2010, 10:39 AM
I don't think I can disagree with your top five; those people are the heroes of computing.

cascade9
September 11th, 2010, 10:40 AM
Hard to pick 5, but I'd have to put Ada Lovelace in there, no matter who else appeared-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

matthew.ball
September 11th, 2010, 10:53 AM
1. Alonzo Church
2. Haskell Curry
3. Alan Turing
4. Dana Scott
5. Richard Stallman

Honourable mentions to:
1. Stephen Kleene
2. Martin Davis
3. John Rosser
4. Marvin Minsky
5. John McCarthy
6. Edsger Dijkstra
7. Donald Knuth
8. John Backus
9. Brian Kernighan
10. Dennis Ritchie
11. Ken Thompson
12. Linus Torvalds
13. Andrew Tanenbaum
14. John von Neumann
15. Seymour Cray

On that note, I've probably spent far too long in computer science.

Naiki Muliaina
September 11th, 2010, 10:53 AM
Not sure who I would choose as I don't know many names in programming, but Stallman and Linus regularly used to annoy me. Stallman often struck me as a 'hippy bully' and Linus struck me as having a mouth so big you could have floated the titanic into it.

MooPi
September 11th, 2010, 11:07 AM
Not sure who I would choose as I don't know many names in programming, but Stallman and Linus regularly used to annoy me. Stallman often struck me as a 'hippy bully' and Linus struck me as having a mouth so big you could have floated the titanic into it.
Brilliant people tend to be blunt in my experience.

Naiki Muliaina
September 11th, 2010, 11:16 AM
Blunt is fine. But I found neither as blunt as I would have liked.

standingwave
September 11th, 2010, 11:33 AM
Leibnitz
Babbage (& Lovelace)
Shannon
Von Neumann
Turing

bakelitedoorbell
September 11th, 2010, 12:29 PM
Woz
Linus
Cray
Jay Miner
Jean-Louis Gassée

ronnielsen1
September 11th, 2010, 12:34 PM
Hmm, no mention yet of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer or Ricemonster

Nepherte
September 11th, 2010, 01:21 PM
Eckert and Mauchly, anyone?

edit: forgot Conrad Zuse.

andymorton
September 11th, 2010, 02:19 PM
Hmm, no mention yet of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer or Ricemonster

He contributed a lot to computers but I could never describe Gates or anyone else at Microsoft as a hero of mine. Surely he's the biggest enemy of open source and free software.

Random_Dude
September 11th, 2010, 02:41 PM
He contributed a lot to computers but I could never describe Gates or anyone else at Microsoft as a hero of mine. Surely he's the biggest enemy of open source and free software.

How about Ballmer or Ricemonster?

RiceMonster
September 11th, 2010, 02:49 PM
1) RiceMonster
2) RiceMonster
3) RiceMonster
4) RiceMonster
5) RiceMonster

Random_Dude
September 11th, 2010, 02:59 PM
1) RiceMonster
2) RiceMonster
3) RiceMonster
4) RiceMonster
5) RiceMonster

Small ego I see. XD

andymorton
September 11th, 2010, 03:12 PM
How about Ballmer or Ricemonster?

The same goes for Ballmer. As for Ricemonster, see post number 14. :D

thatguruguy
September 11th, 2010, 06:40 PM
1. Supercomputerman
2. Batcomputerman
3. Spidercomputerman
4. Iron Computer Man
5. Wolverine

Random_Dude
September 11th, 2010, 06:56 PM
1. Supercomputerman
2. Batcomputerman
3. Spidercomputerman
4. Iron Computer Man
5. Wolverine

Those are computing superheroes not regular computing heroes.

Bachstelze
September 11th, 2010, 07:01 PM
In no particular order:

John von Neumann
Alan Turing
Bill Joy
Ken Thompson
The Cookie Monster

Nepherte
September 11th, 2010, 07:06 PM
Here's my top 5:
1. Conrad Zuse
2. Alan Turing
3. Douglas Engelbart
4. John Backus
5. Donald E. Knuth

amitabhishek
September 11th, 2010, 07:29 PM
He contributed a lot to computers but I could never describe Gates or anyone else at Microsoft as a hero of mine. Surely he's the biggest enemy of open source and free software.

I absolutely admire Bill Gates the philanthropist. He is doing some great work with the money he made from Windows!

TNT1
September 11th, 2010, 07:34 PM
Good, Lord! I suck at this game. I read the entire fred, and I recognised a whole three names, and two of them were Gates and Ballmer:o

andymorton
September 11th, 2010, 07:37 PM
I absolutely admire Bill Gates the philanthropist. He is doing some great work with the money he made from Windows!

I admire that side of him too and I hope he can make a difference to a lot of people's lives. :)

Glenn nl
September 11th, 2010, 07:54 PM
1. Linus Torvalds - Without him we would be using probably windows
2. Mark Shuttleworth - Brought Linux to humanity :P
3. John Carmack - Co-founder of ID software, he open-sourced pretty much every old engine of ID, without him we would not have any decent FPS games on Linux at all

Can´t come up with anything else :D

Bachstelze
September 11th, 2010, 08:19 PM
1. Linus Torvalds - Without him we would be using probably windows


What? No.

TNT1
September 11th, 2010, 08:31 PM
2. Mark Shuttleworth - Brought Linux to humanity :P


Ooh ooh! Another name I recognise... And he's a souf efrikan like me:D

Phrea
September 11th, 2010, 08:38 PM
For our modern computer age: Woz

KiwiNZ
September 11th, 2010, 08:52 PM
I wouldn't call them heroes reserve that title elsewhere but folks I admire

Bill Hewlett , Dave Packard
Steve Jobs , Steve Wozniak
Bill Gates , Paul Allen
Bob Young , Marc Ewing
Tim Berners -Lee
Mark Shuttleworth

MichealH
September 11th, 2010, 08:56 PM
1. Bill Gates XP
2. Steve Jobs XP
3. Mark Shuttlewoth
4. Linus Torvalds
5. Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Well, Six?

mips
September 11th, 2010, 09:24 PM
Jay Miner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Miner)

NovaAesa
September 11th, 2010, 10:14 PM
Edsger Dijkstra
Allan Turing
Donald Knuth
Robert Floyd
John von Neumann

chris200x9
September 11th, 2010, 10:19 PM
who ever thought up bogo sort

apmcd47
September 11th, 2010, 11:04 PM
Larry Wall, of course!

If I had heroes in computing, they'd include:


Jack Kilby, the guy who invented the integrated circuit. Without him we'd still have valve-powered computers;

The designers of the Intel 4004, the great-grand-daddy of micro-processors;

The guys at Xerox Parc who pioneered the GUI interface;

Clive Sinclair, who thought big by thinking small. Calculators, wristwatches and televisions, but not the ZX81!


Andrew

andymorton
September 11th, 2010, 11:06 PM
Larry Wall, of course!

If I had heroes in computing, they'd include:


Jack Kilby, the guy who invented the integrated circuit. Without him we'd still have valve-powered computers;

The designers of the Intel 4004, the great-grand-daddy of micro-processors;

The guys at Xerox Parc who pioneered the GUI interface;

Clive Sinclair, who thought big by thinking small. Calculators, wristwatches and televisions, but not the ZX81!




Andrew


I had a ZX when I was a kid. I can't remember which one. That was my first computer. Happy days! :D

johnb820
September 11th, 2010, 11:06 PM
Most of the people who have made the biggest impact on computing do not have name recognition. I would say those who have won the Turing Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award) are a good place to start. Other than that I give massive respect to the people who took all of the thousands of pieces (hardware/software) and somehow put them together effectively. It boggles my mind how a processor can even function sometimes with how complex they are. And the same goes for OSes.

djheadley
September 12th, 2010, 01:57 AM
No one remembers ADM Grace Hopper? A female programmer in a male programmers world. She is supposed to have first the words "computer bug". It seems that in those days a computer consisted of many, many vacuum tubes and switches, and one day a moth shorted out a switch. ADM Hopper taped the moth on a page in the logbook and marked it "computer bug"

handy
September 12th, 2010, 02:28 AM
From my personal experience, this bunch are the greatest.

It took more than 5 of them to create what was at the time by far the most advanced desktop computer the world has ever seen:

* Jay Miner - HW: Team leader, Agnus chip (deceased)
* Dave Needle - HW: Agnus chip, system boards
* Glenn Keller - HW: Paula chip
* David Dean - HW: Denise chip
* Bob Pariseau - SW: Team leader
* Carl Sassenrath - SW: Exec kernel
* RJ Mical - SW: Intuition (GUI)
* Neil Katin - SW: Devices
* Dale Luck - SW: Graphics
* Jim Mackraz - SW: Graphics, devices
* Bart Whitebook - SW: Graphics
* Sam Dicker - SW: Sound
* Bob Burns - SW: Printers & input devices

* Dave Haynie - brains from Commodore (just to prove that they had some!)


It surely would be nice to see a bunch with the brilliance, creativity & passion that this team had come to the surface again.

They weren't doing it for the money, they were doing it to create absolutely the best that they could create.

Frak
September 12th, 2010, 02:54 AM
I wouldn't call them heroes reserve that title elsewhere but folks I admire

Bill Hewlett , Dave Packard
Steve Jobs , Steve Wozniak
Bill Gates , Paul Allen
Bob Young , Marc Ewing
Tim Berners -Lee
Mark Shuttleworth
Sans Shuttleworth and the list matches mine.

ubunterooster
September 12th, 2010, 03:15 AM
5: Gates
4: Jobs
3: Stallman
2: Torvalds
1: AAA

afroman10496
September 12th, 2010, 03:23 AM
Larry Ellison beats all of them suckers ;)

http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2010/image.axd?picture=2010%2F5%2Flarryellison-hd.jpg

lucho64
September 12th, 2010, 04:07 AM
I don't have five, but I'm sure I could be persuaded to include any of the others suggested if the list included:
Bjarne Stroustrup
Richard Stallman
Dennis Ritchie

borth92
September 12th, 2010, 04:14 AM
you have to mention Bill Gates. He was behind the first OS that made computers simple enough for the average person

cprofitt
September 12th, 2010, 05:03 AM
Hard to pick 5, but I'd have to put Ada Lovelace in there, no matter who else appeared-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace


+1 I think Ada deserves a position in the top 5.

handy
September 12th, 2010, 06:23 AM
you have to mention Bill Gates. He was behind the first OS that made computers simple enough for the average person

No he wasn't.

Steve Jobs, made the GUI happen for personal computer users (which Gates & co copied) after he had a tour of the Xerox Park facility. He saw what Dr. Allan Kay, had created (which put poor Steve into shock) & he knew that this is what the world would be using.

After which, with Allan Kay & the help of others, the Mac GUI was born.

Allan Kay, certainly needs to be on this list where 5 is just far too few options:

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/interview/0,289202,sid26_gci962762,00.html

Khakilang
September 12th, 2010, 09:05 AM
Neo is the one.

Strategist01
September 12th, 2010, 01:27 PM
No particular order:

1. Charles Babbage
2. Ada Lovelace
3. George Boole
4. Alan Turing
5. Linus Torvalds