I was reading a book on COM the other day. Why, you ask? Since I am working on some stuff that needs the use of COM and I haven’t a damn clue on what it is about and how it is programmed. Well then, I was reading this book and the foreword has been written by a couple of guys and one of that was there in Microsoft during the times when the COM specification was being worked upon and during the time that it was being matured.
This got me thinking about the famous programming personalities or personalities involved with technology and development that we know through the books that we have read or otherwise heard of. Somehow there is a connection between all these people. How many people do we know in the recent past – lets say, the last 4-5 years – who have worked on, say C++, and have been termed an expert in that language and is renowned for it. I have not heard of any such person.
While I thought about it, and had some discussions with a friend over Twitter, I came to the conclusion that the early adopters are the ones who get to be famous and well known. The early adopters are also usually the ones who have helped the language, technology, or specification, grow and mature over time. Let’s talk about C and C++ for instance. The first people who will pop into your minds when you talk about them are Ritchie, Kernighan and Stroustrup. Now does C/C++ these days resemble anything like what they did back in those days? What with STLs, introduction of Template programming, Boost libraries? These were all contributions by the community that are so important now. You just can’t think of writing a C++ program without STLs these days, can you? But what recognition is given to the ones who created it?
Talk about Java, and Sun comes to your mind. I don’t think anyone has contributed more to Java’s development recently than the IBM community (that is just my opinion). But all credit still goes to Sun and Oracle buying Sun is somehow made out to be like Oracle acquired Java. Its crazy, Java belongs to the community and not to Sun. There are so many specifications of Java out there that are not controlled by Sun and that will continue to flourish long after Oracle completes its acquisition of Sun.
So, the point is that if one wants to be famous in the programming world and not just another developer, then he/she must contribute and contribute when it matters the most to the language/technology. Every person will give credit to his/her Mother or Father. I have never seen anyone remember their nannies in their speeches, the nannies who took care of you in your pre-teens when you parents were busy at work unable to take care of you.
To do this though, you have to have the foresight to recognize the potential that a language has and get active in helping it get mature. Most importantly is to see that it get widely adopted, else all your efforts will be a lost cause.