
Creator of cURL wins Polhem Prize 2017 - bkmn
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2017/10/16/polhemspriset-2017/
======
estomagordo
Seeing how this prize, named after the "Father of Swedish engineering", dates
back to the 1800's, and is thus older than the Nobel prize, it has typically
rewarded engineers from the classical engineering fields.

As such, it's _very_ nice to see a feat almost exclusively carried out in the
digital world of software get rewarded, and put right next to accomplishments
in construction, metallurgy, etc.

Among notable earlier recipients with a tech connection (technnection?) stands
Håkan Lans:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kan_Lans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kan_Lans)

~~~
lwansbrough
> tech connection (technnection?)

I’d call that a portman-nooo. But thanks for that bit of context to the award.
Made me appreciate it more coming from the the industry that created “the
webbys” (sorry webbys.)

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1k2ka
I love the last quote of the interview which roughly translates to:

"But this prize might contribute to my family understanding that I do
something of value while they sleep."[0]

Spoken by a person who has created something that has probably been used by
hundreds of millions of people. Obviously the quote is very tounge in cheek,
but still.

[0] [http://www.polhemspriset.se/aktuellt/arets-polhemspris-
till-...](http://www.polhemspriset.se/aktuellt/arets-polhemspris-till-daniel-
stenberg/)

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dankohn1
Daniel has contributed valuable time and energy to ensuring that the
requirements of the Core Infrastructure Initiative Best Practices Badge [0]
were realistic and meaningful.

To get an idea what it's like developing software that is used by more than a
billion people, look at this classic blog post from Daniel [1].

[0]
[http://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/](http://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/)
[1] [https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-
warnin...](https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/)

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jdorfman
If I remember correctly, Daniel has been working on curl for at least 2 hours
a day for ~20 years. I hope he and his family have a well deserved vacation.
Thanks Daniel for your hard work.

~~~
estomagordo
Agreed. The prize money is 250k SEK ($30k). That should buy a pretty sleek
vacation. Even if the prize money is taxed (I'm unsure of that. My thinking is
it counts sort of as a scholarship or grant, tax-wise, and should thus be
exempt of taxation in this case.).

~~~
1k2ka
It seems prizes where the winner is awarded without competing or without
giving a presentation are tax exempt [0].

[0] [http://www.privataaffarer.se/fragor/ar-nobelpriset-
skattepli...](http://www.privataaffarer.se/fragor/ar-nobelpriset-
skattepliktigt-59870)

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cbanek
Curl is in everything. And you can tell, if you find the license. In my 2014
Chevy Cruze, if you look in the owner's manual, there is the curl license, in
all its glory. I've used it many times myself, and it's always proven itself
to be a great piece of software.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I've never actively used it beyond the occasional `curl` commandline thing;
have I subconsciously been using libcurl? Whenever I do a http request from
idk, Java or Go, is libcurl involved?

~~~
ainiriand
Depends, it can be a http connection over tcp without curl being involved or
it can be a curl request wrapped in underneath the hood, like in guzzle, for
example.

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gcp
I wonder if the media attention due to him getting banned from traveling to
the USA contributed to him being known to a wider audience, and thus on the
radar of whoever picks the award winner.

~~~
wodenokoto
That story went by me. Was there a rationale for banning him?

~~~
tolien
[https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2017/06/28/denied-
entry/](https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2017/06/28/denied-entry/)

I can't see any follow-up on _why_ he was denied entry though.

~~~
bagder
We were never able to get any answers as to why I was denied - in spite of
some real efforts in finding out. It will remain an unanswered mystery.

I will make a renewed attempt to travel to the US at a later time. Hopefully
it was just some mess-up, a human error or whatever.

/ Daniel

~~~
emmelaich
My guess is that it's similar to the reason curl (and wget) sometimes get
identified as malware by virus checkers.

Someone in US Immigration Googled 'curl' with your name and found a bunch of
malware hits.

~~~
netzone
Certainly curl is used by lots of malware, and many a hacker probably use curl
in their software.

I guess it's possible he was flagged by someone reviewing malware. Would
malware creators give any credits?

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z3t4
Implementing a HTTP client might seem trivial, but it's actually hard, and
it's getting more and more difficult.

~~~
Cthulhu_
And cURL isn't just a HTTP client, it does loads more.

"[curl] is a free client-side URL transfer library, supporting cookies, DICT,
FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP (with HTTP/2 support), HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, HTTP proxy
tunneling, HTTPS, IMAP, Kerberos, LDAP, POP3, RTSP, SCP, and SMTP. The library
supports the file URI scheme, SFTP, Telnet, TFTP, file transfer resume, FTP
uploading, HTTP form-based upload, HTTPS certificates, LDAPS, proxies, and
user-plus-password authentication."

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wila
Congratulations Daniel, well deserved!

Thank you for creating and maintaining curl. I'm sure it was not always easy
to stay motivated and dedicated at working on this magnificent tool.

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hyperpallium
I wrote a tiny (< busybox) curl, and found some needed http features (like
redirection) required a different architecture than the naive one I started
(and stayed) with. I wonder how many such details have informed the
architecture of curl...

~~~
Piskvorrr
Yup, building a tiny subset of a HTTP client is easy...and then you start
running into the quirks of the protocol, of the servers, even of the network
stack. Building a mostly-functional HTTP client is much harder.

I am deeply grateful for curl - most of the pain of speaking HTTP has been
abstracted away from me, thank you @bagder.

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reacharavindh
Did not know much about curl until I saw this. I have seen a few curl
something.sh | sh instructions online that I always skip and wget the script
for inspection. I guess it took a prestigious swedish award to the author to
add it to my afternoon reading :-)

Judging from the respect in all the comments, it looks like a very well
deserved honour. Congratulations and thanks for your work! I will appreciate
even more after my reading.

~~~
moreless
From my experience both wget and curl deserve respect. Both are fantastic
tools, similar in some ways but covering much ground in other directions. I
find wget ideal as a spider (checking broken linnks, making local backups of
webpages and similar) while curl is much easier to use for quick inspection of
web pages (including headers and https certificates).

Congratulations to author for the prize! And NZ is a great destination, hope
they enjoy it. :)

~~~
digi_owl
And i think that is exactly how they differ.

Wget is first and foremost aimed at being a file downloader/spider. If used
with no switches it will grab the first file behind the url and save it
locally.

Curl on the other hand it more of a HTTP client lib with a cli interface.
Unless fed a specific switch, it will send the file behind the url to stdout.
Meaning that it is more at home at one end of a pipe.

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gergnz
Curl (as well as many other tools) are crucial to me everyday. Thanks to
Daniel (and all the other contributors of all the projects and libraries)!
Enjoy your holiday. Aotearoa (Maori name for NZ) is a beautiful place.

Full disclosure: I'm kiwi, so might be somewhat biased ;-)

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ainiriand
My most sincere congratulations. Good job Daniel.

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dvfjsdhgfv
Thank you Daniel!

Let's also not forget the anonymous authors of Wget - a venerable tool that
eventually lost the battle with curl

~~~
3pt14159
lolwut?

I've downloaded hundreds of billions of things with wget.

~~~
deciduously
Not to mention the two aren't even in competition.

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philippeback
Kerberos support in curl: a godsend

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assafmo
I use curl hundreds of times every day. It is an amazing tool!

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hardlianotion
This is a beautiful thing.

