On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 20:44:00 UTC, Walter Bright
wrote:
On 9/16/2015 7:16 AM, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
On 28/08/2015 22:59, Walter Bright wrote:
People told me I couldn't write a C compiler, then told me I
couldn't
write a C++ compiler. I'm still the only person who has ever
implemented
a complete C++ compiler (C++98). Then they all (100%) laughed
at me for
starting D, saying nobody would ever use it.
My whole career is built on stepping over people who told me
I couldn't
do anything and wouldn't amount to anything.
So your whole career is fundamentally based not on bringing
value to the
software world, but rather merely proving people wrong? That
amounts to living
your professional life in thrall of other people's validation,
and it's not
commendable at all. It's a waste of your potential.
It is only worthwhile to prove people wrong when it brings you
a considerable
amount of either monetary resources or clout - and more so
than you would have
got doing something else with your time.
It's not clear to me that was always the case throughout your
career... was it?
Wow, such an interpretation never occurred to me. I will
reiterate that I worked on things that I believed had value and
nobody else did. I.e. I did not need validation from others.
Yeah, I was a bit stunned that that is what Bruno took from your
post. I don't think anybody would question that writing a C or
C++ compiler in the '80s and '90s had value, and I'm sure you did
pretty well off them, considering you retired at 42
(http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/how-i-came-to-write-d/240165322).
Your point is that nobody thought _you_ or you _alone_ could do
these valuable things, and you repeatedly proved them wrong.
Those doubting you in this thread, about improving the dmd
backend so it's competitive with llvm/gcc while still having time
to work on the frontend, may or may not turn out to be right, but
you certainly seem to have a good track record at proving such
doubters wrong.
