
Interview with Jon Skeet - eddie_31003
http://blog.fogcreek.com/dev-life-interview-with-jon-skeet/
======
junto
As a fellow Brit and as someone working in C# everyday, Jon Skeet is somewhat
of a personal hero of mine. I can't count the number of times I've turned to
StackOverflow and found the answer to have be written by him. Chappeau!

Interestingly we appear to have had similar paths to get to our careers. I too
started off with BASIC and the BBC B Micro. I then went on to study Computer
Science at GCSE, A-Level and then at university. Jon must be a similar age to
me, so I'm guessing he also was one of the first to take GCSE's after the UK
switched from the 'O-level' (1990-1991).

Great little interview. Thanks for sharing @eddie_31003.

~~~
weavie
Snap! Did my comp sci GCSE in 1990.

~~~
hellodevnull
How was it? I didn't have an option to take CS either for GCSE or A-Level.
There was IT but most university departments actually discouraged it and
recommended just taking science and maths.

~~~
weavie
To be honest it was so long ago I can't really remember too much. I recall
trying to learn SQL and relational theory but just not getting it and thinking
I would never use it anyway - how naive I was! That might have been A-Level.

They taught us BASIC, I can't remember the computers we had, I don't think
they were popular ones. I do remember one of my colleagues really struggled
with his practical project because he named all his variables a, aa, aaa, aaaa
and so on. There was a maximum variable length of 8 characters so things went
all wrong when he needed to use 9 variables. I don't think we were taught
anything about quality software development, using decent variable names,
algorithms etc..

Overall I did find the courses incredibly easy and I aced both without even
trying. It was university where things started to get a bit more challenging.

I did science and maths as well, I did get much more out of those courses.

------
johnny_reilly
Quite apart from his obvious technical chops, I've always been impressed by
Jon Skeet's unfailing politeness and helpfulness. He's a real role model to
developers.

Whatta guy!

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S_A_P
This guy has always impressed me. He works on Java at Google and spends a
large chunk of time being a C# and .NET expert. Obviously C# and Java are
semantically close to the point of nearly interchangeable, but the devil is in
the details and he seems to have them down.

~~~
V-2
Java is years behind C# in most aspects. Of course it doesn't mean it follows
the same path, but there's less to learn if you switch from (modern) C# to
Java than the other way round.

------
jimbobimbo
I envy the way he manages to balance all commitments in his life. Pretty
amazing.

~~~
nstart
Me too. I find myself frustrated with my inability to balance stuff every now
and then. I would love to sit with Jon and just have him say "here.. here's
where you are doing it wrong" and then find enlightenment. :D

------
chdir
I would vote for him as the most decent & helpful guy on Stackoverflow. I've
always found his tone humble, which isn't very common these days. Really glad
to have people like him around.

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gadders
I'm guessing this is what they mean by a 10x programmer? :-)

~~~
pmelendez
And the Chuck Norris of programming :)

[http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-
facts](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts)

------
AceJohnny2
I'm vaguely aware of Jon Skeet from echoes from the Windows dev world, from
which I've largely stayed detached.

Can someone explain the significance of Jon Skeet, preferebly in terms of
"Facts" in the style of Bruce Schneier's [1] or Jeff Dean's [2]?

[1] [http://www.schneierfacts.com/](http://www.schneierfacts.com/) [2]
[http://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-
facts](http://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts)

~~~
bgc
Jon Skeet is a frequent contributor to StackOverflow.com[0], where he is known
for being able to answer highly obscure questions with equally obscure
answers[1].

[0] [http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-
skeet](http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet) [1]
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6841333/why-is-
subtractin...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6841333/why-is-subtracting-
these-two-times-in-1927-giving-a-strange-result/6841479#6841479)

~~~
unwind
He's also, kind of, known for being the top user in terms of reputation
points.

It's a little like there's Jon Skeet, then there's nothing for a while, then
there's somebody else. His average reputation increase per day is often more
than 300. Of course, 200 is the typical "cap" on daily increase, but somehow
he Skeets around that. He'll probably reach a million points this year.

Not that I think reputation points on Stack Overflow is very interesting or
meaningful, of course. :)

~~~
flurdy
Has Jon Skeet reached one million yet:
[http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com](http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com)
Not quite this year, but soon.

(Ps, add your own id to see when you reach it:
[http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com/155689](http://www.hasjonskeetreachedonemillionyet.com/155689)
Mine is in quite a few years)

~~~
ygra
Oh, yay, in 2046. I guess I should start answering a few questions again.

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j-hernandez
Nice interview, I always enjoy reading his contributions on StackOverflow. I
don't always understand what even the problem at hand is, but it's just a
fascinating exercise to read some of his responses and the obscure facts
behind them.

Science Fact: Jon Skeet cannot parse HTML using regular expressions [0]

0:
[http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/537093](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/537093)

------
WorldWideWayne
I thought that Google engineers weren't allowed to use Windows.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Google produces some software for Windows - e.g. Chrome. How did you think
they did that if they weren't allowed to use the OS?

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Sorry, I was just being sarcastic about how Google doesn't allow broad Windows
usage, allegedly because they're afraid of Chinese hackers. I just always
thought it was a bullshit reason that was trumped up to make Microsoft look
bad.

(edited for clarity)

