alt Hacker NewsI’ve heard that Torvalds build Git in 5 (or 10) days and that Brendan Eich created JavaScript in 10 days.
Maybe the average programmer is less efficient, but the distribution is probably heavily skewed these days.
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> I’ve heard that Torvalds build Git in 5 days
And it shows.
I am joking of course, git is pretty great, well half-joking, what is it about linux that it attracts such terrible interfaces. git vs hg, iptables vs pf. there is a lot of technical excellence present, marred by a substandard interface.
My understanding (direct from Graydon, some 18 years ago) was that Linus admired Monotone except for its slowness. Graydon liked making things correct then fast, but was on a break in Köln when Linus (provoked by loss of BitKeeper) emailed on Friday endorsing Monotone's design and asking for speed. Graydon said "let me buy a laptop and I'll start on Monday".
Monday rolled around and Linus said "too late, I wrote it already" (it => git).
Brendan Eich would say "10 days" whenever one of the big warts from the that are unfixable came up.
I'd argue that ordinary programmers can perform the same *type* of exercises if they:
- Put away a few weeks and go into Hermit mode;
- Plan ahead what projects they have in mind, which books/documents to bring with them. Do enough research and a bit of experimental coding beforehand;
- Reduce distraction to minimum. No Internet. Dumb phone only. Bring a Garmin GPS if needed. No calls from family members;
I wouldn't be surprised if they could up-level skills and complete a tough project in three weeks. Surely they won't write a UNIX or Git, but a demanding project is feasible with researches allocated before they went into Hermit mode.