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Who's The Best Programmer In The World? Find The Top 10 List

The best programmers in the world include people who laid the groundwork for tech giants of today. Find the list here.
Gurpreet Saini
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Who's The Best Programmer In The World? Find The Top 10 List
Schedule Icon 0 min read

Table of content: 

  • Charles Babbage
  • Brendan Eich
  • Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee
  • Linus Benedict Torvald
  • Brian Wilson Kernighan
  • Ryan Dahl
  • Bjarne Stroustrup
  • Donald Ervin Knuth
  • Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie
  • James Arthur Gosling
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Do you think Jeff Bezos was a programmer? If you believe the answer is YES, we are sorry to disappoint you. It is a common misconception that Bezos was the best programmer in the world. In fact, there is no shortage of similar articles on Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. While we believe what they have accomplished is incredible, we frequently overlook the groundwork that made things a bit simpler for them. We think what they have achieved is just unreal. Neither of them is the best programmer in the world, though most computer lovers believe them to be. 

Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk might be the wealthiest people in the world selling their models. But they are not the best programmers in the world. They stopped programming a long time ago. Today, in this article, let's talk about the BEST programmers in the world who gave us remarkable things in the realm of computers and then made them freely available to the public. Let's talk about some best coders in the world who helped us build the foundation of computer science. 

1. Charles Babbage

The first in line to claim the title of best programmer in the world is Charles Babbage. He is a British computer scientist and one of the famous programmers who has published around 90 papers. He is also a pioneer in computers, who invented the mechanical computer. This mechanical computer contained an ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit), basic flow control, punch cards, and an integrated memory that could do basic arithmetic operations. He is famously known as the 'Father of the Computers'. He is a Mathematician and Mechanical Engineer who believed in the concept of digital programmable computation. Unfortunately, they could not develop and publish the computer while he was alive due to the lack of funding.

Charles Babbage

Source: Wikipedia

2. Brendan Eich 

The second among the best programmers in the world is Brendan Eich. He is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He is regarded as the "Father of JavaScript". He is the co-founder of the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, the Mozilla Corporation, and the founder of Brave software. He can be called the best coder in the world as he created a programming language for Netscape Navigator (the world's first commercially successful browser) in 10 days! The programming language was originally called Mocha before being renamed Live Script. Finally, it was called JavaScript. Today, it is the most preferred programming language. He is currently the CEO of Brave Browser, which has recently gained popularity, and the co-creator of a cryptocurrency BAT (Basic Attention Token)!

Brendan Eich

Source: Wikipedia

3. Tim Berners-Lee 

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is another best programmer in the world. He invented the three magical words "WORLD WIDE WEB" in 1989, paving the way for successful server-client communication. It is solely because of him that you are reading this essay today. He is an Oxford University graduate and currently holds the position of senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is the recipient of numerous prizes, including 'The Turing Award', 'The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering', and 'The USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award'. He is now a senior researcher in Computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also known for creating fundamental technologies like HTML, URL, and HTTP.

Did you know? The Turing Award is commonly referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing."

Tim Berners lee

Source: Wikipedia

4. Linus Torvalds 

Linus Benedict Torvald is a Finnish-American software developer, who is credited with designing the Linux Kernel, an open-source operating system that has been used in Android phones since its inception (Updated version) Linux was designed with compatibility with UNIX in mind. Its feature set is extremely similar to UNIX. During the development process of Linux, he invented the revision control system, Git. It is one of the greatest inventions, which is now being used by everyone to build software projects.

The first version of Linux was released in 1991, and it's quite incredible that an operating system developed in 1991 is currently utilized on mobile devices powered by artificial intelligence. In 2012, he shared the Millennium Technology Prize with Shinya Yamanaka for developing the Linux Kernel. He also earned the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award, the Lovelace Medal, and the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award in 2018.

Linus Torvalds

Source: Britannica

5. Brian Kernighan

Brian Wilson Kernighan is a Canadian computer scientist and is considered one of the best coders in the world. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering and Physics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He collaborated with Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs on the development of Unix. Additionally, he is a co-creator of the programming languages AWK and AMPL and a co-author of the book "The Go Programming Language."

Brian Kernighan

Source: Wikipedia

6. Ryan Dahl

Ryan Dahl is an American Software Engineer and is the man behind the invention of Node.js. Almost all projects to date have begun with the four-letter term "node.". He went to a small college in San Diego before transferring to UC San Diego to study mathematics. He is known for his modesty and down-to-earth approach while interacting with fans, despite being one of the best programmers in the world today. In 2009 he announced that he would be stepping away from Node to take a break from programming, but returned in 2012 with Deno JavaScript. Dino is a run time for Javascript and TyepeScript that runs on the V8 JavaScript engine and RUST programming language.

Ryan Dahl

Check out his video on things he regrets in Node.js -

7. Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup is a Danish Computer scientist who is famous for creating and developing the C++ programming language. Born in Aarhus, Denmark, Stroustrup started his journey by earning a master's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Aarhus University in 1967-1975. He started as a technical staff in the computer science research center of Bell labs and later became the head of AT&TBell Lab's Large-scale Programming Research department. Currently, he is a distinguished Research Lecturer of Computer Science at Texas A&M University, a visiting professor at Columbia University, and a Morgan Stanley employee. He was awarded The Charles Stark Draper Prize, The Computer Pioneer Award, and The Faraday Medal for developing C++.

Did you know that C++ was initially called 'C with Classes'?

Bjarne Stroustrup

8. Donald Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth is an American computer scientist who is known as the 'Father of Analysis of Algorithm'. He contributed to the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms and formal mathematical techniques and popularized the asymptotic notation. He is the multi-volume work author of The Art of Computer Programming, which is still referred to by software developers and computer programmers. He is also a professor at Stanford University. Donald Knuth was awarded the ACM Turing Award which is considered a Nobel award in the Computer community.

Donald Knuth

Source: Wikipedia

9. Dennis Ritchie

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie is an American Programmer, who is famous as the language creator of C. He began working in Bell Labs where his father worked before. He has a major contribution to creating the Unix operating system along with his friend Ken Thompson and Brian Wilson Kernighan. C is one of the most popular computer programming languages and plays a vital role in the software programming field.

Dennis Ritchie

Source: Wikipedia

Did you know that Ken Thompson created the B language, the direct predecessor of the C language?

Dennis Ritchie was later awarded the Turing Award, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, and the Industrial Research Institute Award for his contributions to the computer science field.

10. James Gosling

The last on the list of best programmers in the world is James Arthur Gosling. He is a Canadian computer scientist. Gosling is famous as the language creator of JAVA, a crucial language in any software development project. He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Calgary and an M.A. and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He came up with the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) idea while working on a program to move software from a PERQ to a VAX assembler and emulate the hardware.

James Gosling

Source: Wikipedia

These are some of the best programmers in the world. If you have anything to add or correct then feel free to comment below.

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Edited by
Gurpreet Saini
Sr. Associate Content Writer

An avid reader and an ambitious traveller, I like to curate stories. The instinctive desire to explore the unchartered territories of the unknown and unseen inspires me to find wonder in the cosmos. I find solace in the embrace of nature, and hope to create an environment of peace wherever I go.

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