I wish more people would look to John Carmack as their "developer hero" rather the likes of, say, Notch.
You still have to give it to Notch for showing that you can make an extremely entertaining game while not pushing any hardcore boundaries, such as graphics. Perhaps this will inspire more people to get into software development.
In terms of actual code they're not even in the same league so I won't bother comparing anything Carmack's achieved with Notch's magic number and circular reference-ridden Java code.