Adele Francois

Posted on Dec 20, 2017

If you could meet your tech hero, what's one question you would like to know?

#discuss

Feel free to let us know who your tech hero is and why! :)

Oldest comments (17)

Christian Vasquez • Dec 20 '17 • Edited

I'm currently in a mind-battle between Elon Musk and Larry Page!

But I'll go with Larry Page, since Elon is too mainstream :P

I read a book called How Google Works by Erick Schmidt and he narrates some anecdotes from his days when he started working at Google that got my attention.

I like to consider myself as an introvert (at least most of the time) and so does Larry Page, so that may have also influenced in how I can relate to him.

Adele Francois • Dec 20 '17

I agree I think Elon is too mainstream lol, but that's a good pick. Definitely need to pick up that book!

Kasey Speakman • Dec 20 '17

I don't really have heroes, but there are people that have taught me a lot whom I have never met in person. Tech bloggers, conference speakers, historical giants of computer science. No questions really, just a big Thank You.

Bob van Hoove • Dec 21 '17

Same here. There's some people who I deeply respect for their contributions.

I like to name a few: Douglas Crockford for his lectures on javascript. Erik Meijer for bringing us LINQ and his radiant passion. The DEV.TOcrew for making this nice little/great place :)

But if I were to meet any of them I'd rather buy them a drink and say thanks.

Nicho • Dec 21 '17 • Edited

For me it would be Steve Jobs and I would ask him why the iPad never got a calculator 😄
There is actually a funny story behind that (cultofmac.com/421893/why-the-ipad-...). But it's 2017 and the year is also almost over, so I would forward this question to Tim Cook and would highlight that they sell an iPad Pro version and call iOS "The world’s most advanced mobile operating system" (apple.com/ipad-pro/ios/). I mean c'mon! 😂
But to be more serious now, I would like to ask the engineering team, where they see Apple in the next 5-10 years and what they want to solve until then. The same question goes to the teams at Google and Amazon, I think all these people have a big impact on our daily lives, so their thoughts about the future could be very interesting 🙂

Israel García • Dec 21 '17

I would go between Elon Musk and Carl Sagan, both of them are into the space tech stuff and I really would like to ask about their opinion about the current comercial programming scene vs space/rocket science applications

Jason C. McDonald • Dec 22 '17

I'm blessed. I actually got to ask three of my tech heroes questions.

I wrote to both Guido van Rossum and Bjarne Stroustrup to ask for their advice regarding language design. Obviously, I saved their letters. Here's the pithiest answer from each:

Me: What are some problems with programming languages that you have not yet seen solved?

Stroustrup: Stating intent separately from implementation and providing optimal performance. We are making progress at this, but oh, so slowly.

Me: What mistakes do you see being made over and over in language design?

Rossum: If you find users are consistently confused by something, that's an opportunity for improving the language. Don't fall into the trap of thinking "oh, we need to document that better"!

I also wrote a letter to Donald Knuth, in which I asked: "What advice would you have to a young programmer in my position?"

I received a hand-written response on my letter a few weeks later. In it, he said...

At risk of over-promoting my own work, I think the best advice I can offer is to read my book "Literate Programming", then make sure your company uses CWEB!

Now, to be honest, I do not use CWEB - I looked at it and just about had a heart attack - but I did wind up integrating some of its ideas into my Commenting Showing Intent standard. "Literate Programming" is still on my "to read" list.

Anyhow, I have the full response framed on my office wall, because why not?

Adele Francois • Dec 22 '17

Those are some great questions!

Matty Stratton • Dec 23 '17

One of the most amazing things about being a tech podcast host is getting to spend time asking your tech heroes questions - and sometimes these heroes turn into your friends!

I think my real tech hero lately is whoever runs the @SwiftOnSecurity twitter account.