Comments on: Rockstar Developers

By: Deric Horn

Deric Horn — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 14:25:44 +0000

I’ve been to a bunch of WWDC’s and the general concensus from talking to developers was that this was the best one yet.
BTW Scott, I mentioned your site in a session of mine… Fan mail, on its way…

By: Scott Stevenson

Scott Stevenson — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:34:33 +0000

I don’t think you can get to be a Mac developer without having some sort of passion for making great things. Passion makes a rock star.

Mac developers tend to step back and ask “what do real people actually want?” It’s less about being interested in computers for the sake of computers, and more about the end result. What all this code can actually do for us as real people.

By: Jonathan Monroe

Jonathan Monroe — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:13:08 +0000

Without a doubt: Steven and Cabel of Panic. They are humble and self efacing to a fault, their blogs are interesting and funny, they do cool extra stuff (Beagle Bros museum, Spamusement, CocoaDev, etc), AND they make great Mac software that I love spending my money on.

By: el jefe

el jefe — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:26:44 +0000

I heard Brent and some groupies totally trashed his hotel room.

By: Fraser Speirs

Fraser Speirs — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:38:12 +0000

I’m not a rockstar, but maybe I could be the surly bass player at the back of the stage?

By: Daniel Jalkut

Daniel Jalkut — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 01:08:12 +0000

I would concur with your list and also agree about Wil Shipley, despite his personality conjuring up ire in the hearts of some. I happen to think his egotism is relatively well-earned

There are so many and they span the ages, but I think any such list should include Wolf Rentzsch.

Attempting to brainstorm this question also begs the question of how to classify the “introvert rockstars” such as the many relatively quiet engineers at companies like Apple, Bare Bones, Omni Group, etc., who are not particularly public but whose work speaks for itself.

I guess those are the “studio session rock stars” of Mac OS X

By: Gus Mueller

Gus Mueller — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:54:44 +0000

I look up to Blake Seely of course!
Gus Mueller a rockstar- hahahaha. Oh wait, I do have a guitar…

By: blake

blake — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:38:46 +0000

ohmygod, Jonathan Wight even has the surly rockstar attitude perfected!!

Aaron: *Definitely* Wil Shipley - I didn’t see him at WWDC, but I did stop and briefly talk to him at MacWorld in January. Definitely one of the platform’s rockstars.

By: Jonathan Wight

Jonathan Wight — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:31:04 +0000

Rockstar my arse.

By: Aaron Tait

Aaron Tait — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:14:29 +0000

I would have to say that I look up to Wil Shipley the most. Mainly because he is hilarious and brilliant at the same time. I was too much of a coward to talk to him at WWDC though. It was cool to know that I was in the same room as him for a couple of the sessions.