[HN Gopher] Fabrice Bellard: Biography (2009) [pdf]
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Fabrice Bellard: Biography (2009) [pdf]
Author : lioeters
Score : 152 points
Date : 2025-12-24 18:17 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ipaidia.gr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ipaidia.gr)
| rurban wrote:
| (2009)
| dang wrote:
| I've put that in the title above, although the URL says 2020 -
| could the text have been updated?
| lioeters wrote:
| By the way (I'm who submitted the link) - I found a prior
| discussion on the same document but different URL now
| expired. There's even a comment by one of the authors,
| sharing some context.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555654 (2011)
|
| My favorite line from the biography:
|
| > [As a child] Bellard was drawn to electronic devices. His
| first word was _magnetophone_ (tape recorder).
| dang wrote:
| Nice find! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Fabrice Bellard [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555654 - May 2011 (29
| comments)
|
| I guess we can throw these in too although it was
| presumably a different article:
|
| _Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a Super-Productive
| Programmer (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32795067 - Sept 2022
| (26 comments)
|
| _Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a Super-Productive
| Programmer (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6941135 - Dec 2013 (24
| comments)
|
| _Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a super-productive
| programmer (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5187585 - Feb 2013
| (155 comments)
|
| _Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a superproductive
| programmer_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555867
| - May 2011 (8 comments)
| lioeters wrote:
| This biography includes more information than I've seen elsewhere
| about the legendary programmer, who's been discussed time and
| again on this forum.
| chubot wrote:
| Without being glib, I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has
| started using any LLM coding tools. If he could be even more
| productive, that would be scary!
|
| I doubt he is ideologically opposed to them, given his work on
| LLM compression [1]
|
| He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized". i.e.
| if you have been programming in C for a few decades, you almost
| certainly have a deep bench of your own code that you routinely
| go back to / copy and modify
|
| In most cases, I don't see an LLM helping there. It could be "out
| of distribution", similar to what Karpathy said about writing his
| end-to-end pedagogical LLM chatbot
|
| ---
|
| Now that I think of it, Bellard would probably train his own LLM
| on his own code! The rest of the world's code might not help that
| much :-)
|
| He has all the knowledge to do that ... I could see that becoming
| a paid closed-source project, like some of his other ones [2]
|
| [1] e.g. https://bellard.org/ts_zip/
|
| [2] https://bellard.org/lte/
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| He has in fact written one: https://bellard.org/ts_server/
| chubot wrote:
| Yeah I've seen that, but it looks like the inference-side
| only?
|
| Maybe that is a hint that he does use off-the-shelf models as
| a coding aid?
|
| There may be no need to train your own, on your own code, but
| it's fun to think about
| latenightcoding wrote:
| What I wonder is: are current LLMs even good for the type of
| work he does: novel, low-level, extremely performant
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| No
| wolttam wrote:
| If Fabrice explained what he wanted, I expect the LLM would
| respond in kind.
| vasco wrote:
| If Fabrice explained what he wanted the LLM would say it's
| not possible.
|
| When the coding assistant LLMs load for a while it's
| because they are sending Fabrice an email and he corrects
| it and replies synchronously.
| slekker wrote:
| I doubt it, although LLMs seem to do well on low-level (ASM
| level instructions).
| vitaminCPP wrote:
| As a professional C programmer, the answer seems to be no;
| they are not good enough.
| gyomu wrote:
| > I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has started using any
| LLM coding tools. If he could be even more productive, that
| would be scary!
|
| That's kind of a weird speculation to make about creative
| people and their processes.
|
| If Caravaggio had had a computer with Photoshop, if Eintein had
| had a computer with Matlab, would they have been more
| productive? Is it a question that even makes sense?
| lomase wrote:
| Matlab has been proven to be a indispensable tool in many
| fields.
|
| AI is the same, for example creating slop or virtual
| girlfriends.
| Kiro wrote:
| > Is it a question that even makes sense?
|
| Absolutely. It's a very intriguing thought invoking the
| opposite of the point you're trying to make.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Maybe today Bellard uses LLMs though
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Without being glib, I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has
| started using any LLM coding tools
|
| I doubt it. I follow him and look at the code he writes and
| it's well thought out and organized. It's the exact opposite of
| AI slop I see everywhere.
|
| > He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized".
| i.e. if you have been programming in C for a few decades,
|
| C I think he memorized a long time ago. It's more like he keeps
| the whole structure and setup of the program (the context) in
| his head and is able to "see it" all and operate on it. He is
| so good that people are insinuating he is actually "multiple
| people" or he uses an LLM and so on. I imagine he is quite
| amused reading those comments.
| lomase wrote:
| Why every single post in HN has to come down to talk about AI
| sloop...
| raverbashing wrote:
| I think it's the opposite: llms ask Fabrice Bellard instead
| echelon wrote:
| They're trained on his code for sure. Every time I ask about
| ffmpeg internals, I know it's Fabrice's training data.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Congrats, the Chuck Norris meme has finally made its way onto
| HN.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Fabrice Bellard is far more deserving of the honor that ol'
| Chucky.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Tough choice: Knuth, Bellard, Norvig...
| agumonkey wrote:
| Some talented people (mitsuhiko, Evan you) seem to leverage LLM
| their own way. Probably as legwork mostly.
| speedgoose wrote:
| He did a few things since, notably 5G base stations using PC
| hardware, and some LLM stuff.
| dakiol wrote:
| While the guy is brilliant, I doubt he could fit the role of
| senior/staff/principal engineer in any one-level-below faang kind
| of company. Typically, these roles require good communication
| skills and working together with other engineers (which is really
| hard). So, while he's very good at the tech level, I think he
| primarily works alone? In that regard, it would be a very bad
| fit. I may be wrong, tho.
| haunter wrote:
| He is the co-founder and CTO of Amarisoft built on thechnology
| he developed
|
| https://www.amarisoft.com/
|
| https://www.amarisoft.com/company/about-us
|
| https://bellard.org/lte/
| adamors wrote:
| Who cares about being a staff at FAANG lmao when he gets to do
| what he does currently?
| encom wrote:
| Employing Bellard at FAANG would be a tragic waste!
| questionableans wrote:
| In technically deep domains like Bellard works in, Staff+ roles
| bias more towards technical expertise, and managers also tend
| to be more technical and able to more completely address
| technical coordination tasks. Sometimes we like to assume that
| if someone is good at one thing, they'll be bad at something
| more mundane (to make ourselves feel better), but I sincerely
| doubt he would have any trouble in such a role.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| Is it insecurity about yourself that leads you to baselessly
| speculate that an accomplished figure is unemployable?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how
| wrong another comment is or you feel it is. It only makes
| things worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dllu wrote:
| The fact that so many people use FFmpeg and QEMU suggest that
| he is quite good at documenting, collaborating, and at least
| making his code remarkably clean and easy to follow. This
| already puts him way ahead of the average silicon valley senior
| software engineer that I've worked with. However, he does value
| independence so I don't think he would have been happy working
| at a faang-type company for long.
| kaffekaka wrote:
| Yeah and can he do it on a cold rainy night in stoke?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"In that regard, it would be a very bad fit. "
|
| He might as well be but why would he give a flying fuck about
| it? He gets to do what he wants and is financially independent
| for doing just that. Most can only dream about it.
|
| Myself - I do not come within a million miles to his
| professional level, but I still have managed to do just that -
| I develop what I want, how I want and get paid for it. I am 64
| and still design and develop actively for my own company and
| for clients. Gives me happiness, motivation to stay alert and
| more than enough time to still do my hobbies (mostly various
| outdoor activities).
| rdtsc wrote:
| > While the guy is brilliant, I doubt he could fit the role of
| senior/staff/principal engineer in any one-level-below faang
| kind of company.
|
| Maybe but what's the point? Hell, I might guess he is terrible
| at jiggling and basket weaving, too. Complete failure as
| wrestler, even. But that is kind of neither here or there. Or
| is it you think staff title at faangs is some kind of pinnacle
| position every engineer should strive for? It actually always
| strikes me as a funny title. In college when they didn't have a
| specific professor to teach or just going to use a grad student
| they put "staff" in the name box so in my mind it's associated
| with a random lower rung student who couldn't get away doing
| just research.
| inopinatus wrote:
| At M.Bellard's level one would could hardly even call such an
| outcome a character flaw, but my occasional privilege of
| managing - one should rather say, enabling - high performance
| teams, taught that the Venn intersection of "competent with
| imagination" and "collegiate manner" is far from empty, even in
| the tech sector.
|
| _"'We 're delighted to have you here,' he said, 'but a word of
| advice. Don't try to be clever. We're all clever here. Only try
| to be kind, a little kind.' Like most university stories, this
| one is variously attributed and it probably never even happened
| but, as the Italians say, se non e vero, e ben trovato - even
| if it isn't true, it's well founded."_ [?] Stephen Fry.
| poidos wrote:
| Publishing ffmpeg and QEMU in a five year span that also included
| winning IOCCC (twice!) is absolutely bonkers.
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