Steve Yegge
Encyclopedia
Steve Yegge is a programmer and blogger who is known for writing about "programming languages, productivity and software culture". He received a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Washington and has two decades of industry experience, developing across domains including embedded operating systems, scalable e-commerce systems, applications for mobile devices, and software productivity tools. In his career he has worked for Amazon.com and Google among others.
Conference. In May 2008, Yegge presented a talk on dynamic languages at Stanford University
. In July 2007, Yegge was a presenter at OSCON
2007, presenting a keynote speech on "How to Ignore Marketing and Become Irrelevant in Two Easy Steps".
for development After failing to convince Google to adopt Ruby on Rails, he ported Rails to JavaScript, creating the "Rhino on Rails" project. In 2008, Yegge was interviewed for the Google Code Blog and discussed the "Rhino on Rails" project. His work on "Rhino on Rails" has inspired at least one open-source clone, LatteJS.
In addition to his posts on hiring and interviewing, Yegge's Lisp is Not an Acceptable Lisp post about the Lisp programming language has been widely discussed and cited.
Other programmers—including Paul Bissex, the co-author of "Python Web Development with Django"—have described Yegge's blog as "required reading".
in October 2011. His 3,700-word comment garnered major media and blogger attention for Yegge's pointed commentary criticizing the leanings of the company's technological culture (such as labeling Google+'s minimalist and, in his view, lackluster public platform "a pathetic afterthought") as well as for his comments about his former employer, Amazon (such as calling Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos "Dread Pirate Bezos"). Google cofounder Sergey Brin stated that he would still have his job. Washington Post reporter Melissa Bell stated that Yegge's public rant was a Jerry Maguire
moment.
A Business Insider
article highlighted these internal criticisms by Yegge:
who referred to one of Steve's blog posts from his own blog: "Had this just been another installment in the GNU-vs-XEmacs soap opera, there'd be nothing to see here. Sandwiched between this however are some observations that I think are relevant to anyone who writes programs (start reading from “the dubious future of emacs“). It's hard to argue with the value of self-hosting. It's even harder to argue with the momentum of the browser and dynamic environments."
Presentations
In 2007, Yegge was a speaker at the UIUC 13th annual reflections❘projectionsReflections Projections
Reflections Projections is an annual technology-related conference hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery...
Conference. In May 2008, Yegge presented a talk on dynamic languages at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. In July 2007, Yegge was a presenter at OSCON
O'Reilly Open Source Convention
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
2007, presenting a keynote speech on "How to Ignore Marketing and Become Irrelevant in Two Easy Steps".
Server Side Javascript
Yegge is well known for advocating server-side JavascriptJavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
for development After failing to convince Google to adopt Ruby on Rails, he ported Rails to JavaScript, creating the "Rhino on Rails" project. In 2008, Yegge was interviewed for the Google Code Blog and discussed the "Rhino on Rails" project. His work on "Rhino on Rails" has inspired at least one open-source clone, LatteJS.
Blog
Yegge's blog has received considerable attention, particularly his series of posts on hiring and interviewing.In addition to his posts on hiring and interviewing, Yegge's Lisp is Not an Acceptable Lisp post about the Lisp programming language has been widely discussed and cited.
Other programmers—including Paul Bissex, the co-author of "Python Web Development with Django"—have described Yegge's blog as "required reading".
Accidental posting
Yegge accidentally made an internal Google memo public on Google+Google+
Google+ is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc.The service was launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends who were over 18 years of age to the service to create their own accounts....
in October 2011. His 3,700-word comment garnered major media and blogger attention for Yegge's pointed commentary criticizing the leanings of the company's technological culture (such as labeling Google+'s minimalist and, in his view, lackluster public platform "a pathetic afterthought") as well as for his comments about his former employer, Amazon (such as calling Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos "Dread Pirate Bezos"). Google cofounder Sergey Brin stated that he would still have his job. Washington Post reporter Melissa Bell stated that Yegge's public rant was a Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe...
moment.
A Business Insider
Business Insider
Business Insider is a U.S. business/entertainment news website launched in February 2009. Founded by DoubleClick Founder and former C.E.O. Kevin P. Ryan it is the overarching brand beneath which fall the Silicon Alley Insider and Clusterstock verticals...
article highlighted these internal criticisms by Yegge:
- "That one last thing that Google doesn't do well is Platforms. We don't understand platforms. We don't "get" platforms. Some of you do, but you are the minority. This has become painfully clear to me over the past six years. I was kind of hoping that competitive pressure from Microsoft and Amazon and more recently Facebook would make us wake up collectively and start doing universal services. Not in some sort of ad-hoc, half-assed way, but in more or less the same way Amazon did it: all at once, for real, no cheating, and treating it as our top priority from now on."
- "We don't have a Steve Jobs here. I'm sorry, but we don't."
- "We built a successful product with broad appeal- our search, that is- and that wild success has biased us."
Software
Yegge released the graphical MUD Wyvern through his company Cabochon Inc.Reputation
Steve Yegge has been cited by many notable figures within the broader programming community, including Stuart Halloway who said: "And I am an enthusiast of Paul Graham and Steve Yegge and other folks that have evangelized Lisp to the rest of the developer community over the years." and Don BoxDon Box
Don Box is a Distinguished Engineer currently working at Microsoft.Along with Bob Atkinson, Mohsen Al-Ghosein, and Dave Winer, Don was one of the original four designers of SOAP, a basic messaging layer for web services....
who referred to one of Steve's blog posts from his own blog: "Had this just been another installment in the GNU-vs-XEmacs soap opera, there'd be nothing to see here. Sandwiched between this however are some observations that I think are relevant to anyone who writes programs (start reading from “the dubious future of emacs“). It's hard to argue with the value of self-hosting. It's even harder to argue with the momentum of the browser and dynamic environments."