Celebrating few minds behind today's tech. As a small thank you to these open source creators, I wanted to highlight a few who have shaped the developer toolkits we now take for granted.
- As developers, we often get so busy building products that we forget to appreciate the talented people behind the technologies powering our work. While immersed in our projects, we take for granted the stacks and tools that enable us to create.
- I know I've been thinking of this while building my startup, Firecamp. I've relied heavily on innovations like Linux, React, TypeScript, and Redux without pausing to consider the individuals behind them. But these languages and frameworks didn't just appear; they represent years of vision, creativity, and effort from some brilliant engineers.
- While obsessed with our own building, it's important we recognise the giants whose shoulders we stand on. I'm amazed by what they've added to our engineering arsenal and how they've advanced what's possible for programmers. I'm able to focus on creating products like Firecamp thanks to the robust stacks they've generously shared with the community.
- So let's take a moment to honour some of these inspiring minds behind React, TypeScript, Python, and other technologies that have made such a difference in our work. The fruits of their labor have propelled generations of developers and expanded what we can build with code. I'm incredibly grateful for all they've done to progress software engineering.
Let's dive in 🚀
1. Linus Torvalds
✍️ Creator: Linux, Git
- Finnish-American software engineer who created the Linux kernel in 1991.
- Linux is a popular open source operating system used widely today in servers, mainframes, desktops, smartphones etc.
- In 2005, Torvalds created Git, a distributed version control system that became the most utilized software for source code management.
2. Dennis Ritchie
✍️ Creator: C
- American computer scientist who created the C programming language in 1972 along with Ken Thompson at Bell Labs.
- C later became one of the most widely used programming languages in the world and influenced many other languages.
- Ritchie also helped develop the UNIX operating system alongside Thompson and others at Bell Labs.
- He received the Turing Award in 1983 for his contributions to computer science.
- Ritchie passed away in 2011 at age 70. But his contributions left a lasting impact on computer science and engineering.
3. Bjarne Stroustrup
✍️ Creator: C
- Danish computer scientist who created C++ in 1979 at Bell Labs.
- C++ was built as an extension of the C language, adding features like classes, inheritance, strong typing etc.
- It went on to become one of the most widely used programming languages for systems and application development.
- Stroustrup later became the head of AT&T Labs' Large-scale Programming Research department.
- He was awarded the William Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement in 2000 for his work on C++.
4. Ryan Dahl
✍️ Creator: Nodejs, Deno
- American software engineer who created Node.js in 2009.
- Node.js is a popular open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment.
- Allows developers to use JavaScript for server-side scripting and to build network applications.
- Originally developed it while working for Joyent.
- Won the 2012 O'Reilly Open Source Award for his work on Node.js.
- Currently working as a software engineer at Deno, a JavaScript/TypeScript runtime he created.
5. Kamil Mysliwiec
✍️ Creator: NestJS
- Polish software developer who created NestJS in 2017.
- NestJS is a progressive Node.js framework for building efficient, scalable server-side applications.
- Combines elements of Object Oriented Programming, Functional Programming and Functional Reactive Programming.
- Built on top of Node.js, Express, TypeScript and provides an Angular-inspired architecture.
- Mysliwiec created it while working at A fintech company called BonaFide.
- Currently a core team member and maintainer of the NestJS project.
6. Jarred Sumner
✍️ Creator: Bun
- American software engineer who created Bun in 2021.
- Bun is a fast JavaScript runtime and bundler alternative to Node.js.
- Built on top of V8 isolate threads instead of Node's event loop.
- Focuses on speed, simplicity and type safety features.
- Sumner previously worked on Adobe's React Spectrum library.
- Created Bun while working on frontend projects at Adobe.
- Currently leads the development of Bun as Co-Founder at RunKit.
7. Anders Hejlsberg
✍️ Creator: Typescript
- Danish software engineer who created TypeScript at Microsoft in 2012.
- TypeScript is an open-source typed superset of JavaScript developed by Microsoft.
- Adds optional static typing, classes, interfaces to JavaScript to support large-scale application development.
- Hejlsberg is a prominent Microsoft engineer, having previously designed C# and Delphi.
- He continues to be the lead designer of TypeScript and has been honored with the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming award.
8. Guido van Rossum
✍️ Creator: Python
- Dutch computer scientist who created Python in 1991.
- Python is a widely used high-level, general-purpose programming language.
- Van Rossum was working at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands when he developed Python.
- He continues to be the chief author and Benevolent Dictator for Life of the Python programming language specs.
- Was honored as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in 2016 for his work on Python.
9. Graydon Hoare
✍️ Creator: Rust
- Canadian computer scientist who created Rust at Mozilla Research in 2010.
- Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, speed and concurrency.
- Hoare designed Rust as his personal project to address issues he perceived in C and C++.
- He named it Rust for the rusting or decay it aims to prevent through safety guarantees.
- Led the initial development of Rust until transitioning it to community governance under the Rust Core team.
- Still contributes occasionally but is no longer the lead maintainer.
10. Jordan Walke
✍️ Creator: ReactJS, ReasonML
- Software engineer at Facebook who created React in 2011.
- React is an open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
- Walke built React to solve Facebook's problems in building complex UIs at scale.
- He was inspired by existing frameworks like XHP which was used at Facebook.
- React leverages a declarative, component-based approach and a virtual DOM to optimize updates.
- Walke led the development of React until handing over maintainer ship to the open source community.
11. Evan You
✍️ Creator: VueJS, Vitejs
- Chinese-American software engineer who created Vue.js in 2014.
- Vue is an open-source JavaScript framework for building user interfaces and single-page applications.
- You developed Vue while working at Google as a way to build more manageable UIs than AngularJS.
- Vue's design focuses on incremental adoption, approachability and high performance.
- You continues to lead the development of Vue as its creator and BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life).
Next time you launch a new project using your favorite libraries, consider sending a note of thanks to the programmers who crafted that tech and contributed to the community. Although taking the technology for granted is easy, remembering the human element helps us appreciate how far we’ve come.
By honouring the architects of our tech stacks, we celebrate the spirit of open source collaboration that got us where we are today – and which will guide us to new heights tomorrow.
Help me out 🙏!
I am building Firecamp - an opensource postman alternative. If you like the article and find it useful, I appreciate if you can show your support by starring the Firecamp repo ❤️
firecamp-dev
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firecamp
Developer-first OpenSource API DevTool, Postman/Insomnia alternative.
Firecamp
Open Source Postman Alternative
Firecamp
Firecamp is a dx-first API development platform that helps developers design, develop, test, and document their APIs effortlessly. With a user-friendly interface and a range of powerful features, it streamlines the API development workflow and enhances collaboration among team members.
- 🌈 best-in-class developer experience inspired by vscode dx.
- 📡 multi-protocol testing capabilities with Rest, GraphQL, Websocket, and SocketIO APIs.
- 👐 collaborate on API collections across the workspace and team
- ⛺ build APIs faster without switching between tools and apps. documentation, cli, ci/cd under one roof
👉 Web: https://firecamp.dev
Download Firecamp Desktop Application
- Firecamp for MacOS Intel
- Firecamp for MacOS Silicon
- Firecamp for Windows
- Firecamp for Linux AppImage
🚀 Getting started with Firecamp
To get started with Firecamp, follow these steps:
- Sign in to Firecamp at https://firecamp.dev
- Follow the Getting Started guide from the documentation.
- Start developing, and testing your APIs using Firecamp.
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Your small help will fuel the opensource project and community thriving. 🎇
See you next week and don't forgot to let me know in the comment which tech stack you're using and let's shout the amazing creators.
Top comments (15)
PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf should be in this list (in the top 10). The impact of PHP has been and still is massive regardless of opinions.
thanks for sharing. I'll put his name in the next blog.
There are many greats. Another one is Bram Moolenaar, who created Vim over 30 years ago and continued to work on it until he recently died.
The praise after his death was quite something: github.com/vim/vim/discussions/12737
All are really great open-source innovators!
yes they are!
Oooh! Interesting, and as @garrrikkotua said, I've never heard of several of these!
Great article, I didn't know about many of them before
I too. that's why i wrote them :)
Nice, this is a list of legends! Thanks for sharing
Really nice!
I will really like to include @mhevery in this list created angularjs , angular, karma and now Qwik full of innovations and inspirations for other open sourcers.
You missed John Carmack!
Btw, nice article.
thank for reading the article. I am glad you liked it.
Interesting that more than 1/2 are Javascript based!