And, yes, I would expect everyone in this community to recognize who these people are, and roughly what their contributions have been.
> And, yes, I would expect everyone in this community to recognize who these people are, and roughly what their contributions have been.
I'm sorry but I (and everyone else) don't owe no one any such things. This is excepting too much from people. Yes, not knowing who is Linus, or Bill Gates or Woz would be strange, but its ridiculous to say that Madd Dillon is as well known. I can't (and don't want to) know every significant linux/bsd contributor. I have enough information filling up my limited brains as it is.
Within the Hacker community, anybody who's been "in the industry from the late 80s" should have awareness of around a couple hundred or so major figures, most of whom my mother would not know. Pundits like John Gruber (MG Siegler, Sarah Lacy, Michael Arrington) are perhaps better known in the HN community than those outside of it - but I would expect everyone who has been around any hacker community for a couple decades would recognize Names like Dennis Ritchie, Guido Van Rossum, Richard Stevens, Larry Wall, Tannenbaum, Bill Joy, etc...
In addition to this group of people, People like Matt Dillon should be on your peripheral Radar, even if you don't follow BSD that closely. I've never run FreeBSD/DragonFly BSD, and even I recognized his name.
I'm not suggesting you memorize every last hacker/pundit of any note, but there is just a core _canon_ of people that we reasonably should be expected to know - it's knowledge like this that ties the broader hacker communities together.
if I google Matt Dillon, I only get things about an American actor. So I can't really think of a any reason that I would have heard of him, since this is the first thing that I have read (afaik) that has mentioned him at all. If he was writing a popular technical blog on top of his work then I'm sure I would have.
Of course that is not to disparage his work at all, there are many people who do extremely impressive, valuable things but receive little fame. Even amongst educated people you would probably struggle to find someone who could tell you who invented the combustion engine (Étienne Lenoir) but I'm sure many could name the members of the latest fad pop music group.
It's just that some people are pushing into the spotlight more than others, or more likely they get there on purpose. Some people are happy doing good work in the background and only want recognition amongst a small group of peers.
- Dennis Ritchie of course, and Kernighan too (though I had to google for how to write it) - Gruber and Arrington - yes - Siegler and Lacy - no - Van Rossum, Wall - of course - Tannenbaum - yes, - Stevens - no idea - Joy - rings a bell, but still no idea.
you see, I'm not really into remembering names, especially of the people I'm not in close contact with. I only remember then if they are pounded on me for a while ;)
One of these guys is not like the others.
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
Not that that puts him on the same level as the others, but it is true (as the GP suggested) that his name is well-known here.