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The following people are Computer Programmers who are widely considered to be legends in their field

They are listed out of order but are categorized and with some of their more prominent accomplishments (not everything).

Systems & OS Programming

Ken Thompson

  • Designed and implemented the original Unix OS at Bell Labs (with Dennis Ritchie)
  • Invented the B programming language alongside Dennis Ritchie (predecessor to C)
  • Contributed work to regex and QED
  • Co-developed Go
  • Won the 1983 Turing Award (with colleague Dennis Ritchie)

Dennis Ritchie

  • Designed and implemented the original Unix OS at Bell Labs (with Ken Thompson)
  • Created the C programming language
  • Invented the B programming language alongside Ken Thompson
  • Won the 1983 Turing Award (with colleague Ken Thompson)

Linus Torvalds

  • Created the Linux kernel
  • Created Git
  • Developed Subsurface (scuba diving software)
  • Developed Sparse (tool to find coding faults in the Linux kernel)

Terry Davis

  • Created and designed TempleOS
  • Created HolyC, along with a custom compiler, kernel, and editor

Theory & Algorithms

Donald Knuth

  • Contributed to the development of the computational complexity of algorithms and mathematical techniques for it
  • Created TeX (typesetting program)
  • Created the WEB and CWEB computer programming systems (designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming)
  • "Father of the analysis of algorithms"
  • Won the 1974 ACM Turing Award

Edsger Dijkstra

  • Invented Dijkstra's algorithm (shortest path in graphs)
    • Which he reportedly worked out in 20 minutes at a cafe in Amsterdam

Claude Shannon

  • Invented information theory
  • Introduced bits as a unit of information with his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"
  • Showed that Boolean algebra could describe electrical switching circuits with his earlier 1937 master's thesis
  • Contributed foundational work on cryptography during WWII
  • Built some of the earliest chess-playing and maze-solving machines
  • Had the most hyped AI model named after him because of how cracked he was

Hardware & Personal Computing (Personal Computers)

Ada Lovelace

  • First ever computer programmer / wrote the first computer program

Steve Wozniak

  • Sole inventor for numerous Apple computer patents
  • Designed the Apple I and II computers (creating the first personal computers)
  • Was top Tetris player for years (high score of 740,000)

Languages & Tools

Grace Hopper

  • Devised the theory of machine-independent programming languages
  • Developed COBOL
  • Wrote the first ever computer manual

Richard Stallman

  • Created the GNU project
    • GCC, Emacs, GDB, Glibc, Make, Tar, GZIP, diff, Bison, contributed to Bash
  • Invented the GPL license

Games & Graphics

John Carmack

  • Lead programmer for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, etc.
  • Created Carmack's Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes (technique used in 3D computer graphics)
  • Made contributions to VR and AI

Michael Abrash

  • Wrote the rendering code for Quake alongside John Carmack
  • Runs the team at Meta Reality Labs doing R&D for VR hardware and software

Marcus Persson (Notch)

  • Created Minecraft (the most successful game of all time)
  • Founded Mojang Studios

Ed Boon

  • Solo / lead programmer for Mortal Kombat back in the day

Gabe Newell

  • Co-founded Valve after leaving Microsoft
    • Worked at Microsoft on Windows releases
  • Led development of Half-Life
  • Created Steam

David Rosen

  • Was the head programmer at Wolfire Games (Overgrowth video game)
  • Started with HyperCard (1987 software to create applications) at the age of 6
  • Got job offers from Blizzard, Ubisoft, Raven, and Crytek at the age of 16

JDH

  • Has a YouTube channel where he:
    • Builds Minecraft from scratch multiple times
    • Makes original games from scratch
    • Builds his own graphics card
    • Builds his own computer from scratch
    • And many more

Platforms & Web

Larry Page

  • Co-developed Google

Vitalik Buterin

  • Created Ethereum

Tim Berners-Lee

  • Inventer of
    • World Wide Web
    • HTML
    • URL system
    • HTTP

Nathan Kirby

  • Top 0.1% on CSSBattle

Security & Hacking

George Hotz

  • First person to remove a SIM lock on iPhone (was 17 years old)
  • Has published exploits for PlayStation and Android
  • Founded comma.ai (advanced driver-assistance systems using machine learning)
  • Founded tiny corp (port machine learning instruction sets to hardware accelerators)

Machine Learning

Andrew Tulloch

  • Contributed important work at Meta and OpenAI for machine learning
  • Currently works at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL)

Alan Turing

  • Influental in the development of theoretical computer science.
    • Providing a formalization of the concepts of:
      • The algorithm
      • Computation with the Turing machine