I was coming onto this thread to point out Hans Reiser as well. Of course, he does not fit exactly. He was a filesystem creator rather than a programming language creator. Also, he only committed the one murder, so not a serial killer. But he is someone who fits the theme.
Of course, he seems to be something of an exception. I don't seem to hear about many open source programmers committing murders. Really, there are quite a lot of open source programmers out there, so it seems like we would hear about it more if many of them were committing murder. It may be much more likely to be news when it's the leader of a project like Reiser though. From my perspective, it's important to look at the actual numbers. It's a little hard find a direct statistic on the number of known murderers in the US. From what I can find that there are 180K+ people in prison for murder in the US, mostly in state prisons, but that's obviously not all the murderers since they do get released eventually. Based on actual murder rates and assumptions about how long a murderer might live after the murder, there could be anywhere from around 500K to 1 million murderers in the US. So, that would mean something like 1 in 330 to 1 in 660 people in the US is a murderer. It's hard to say for sure, but it seems like the murder rate among open source programmers is not that high. Among programming language creators specifically... Well, there are admittedly a lot of programming languages, but I'm not sure there are quite that many, so the statistics are tricky because of the small sample size.
On the other hand, many serial killers operate for years or decades before they get caught. Contrary to the popular depiction of them, most of the ones that are caught are a long way from geniuses. Frankly some of them seem to be dumb as posts or at least very careless when you hear their life stories. Of course, it's almost impossible to tell if that means that there are undetectable genius serial killers out there or not.
Diversity (Score:5, Funny)
Programming Language Inventor
Serial Killer
Why can't you identify to be both at the same time . . . ?
I am doing very well on the Serial Killer part, but the Programming Language Inventor is a real bitch and a half.
Re:Diversity (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like Hans Riser ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
"Known for: ReiserFS, murder"
Re: (Score:2)
...What do you want on your tombstone?
Pepperoni and mushrooms, please.
Re: Diversity (Score:2)
Mushrooms are very probable. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Diversity (Score:2)
I prefer a sixteen ton killer! :D
Re: (Score:2)
I killed sixteen tons, and what do I get? Another day older, and deeper in debt.
Re: Diversity (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And to be honest, I don't think he created any programming languages...
Re:Diversity (Score:5, Interesting)
I was coming onto this thread to point out Hans Reiser as well. Of course, he does not fit exactly. He was a filesystem creator rather than a programming language creator. Also, he only committed the one murder, so not a serial killer. But he is someone who fits the theme.
Of course, he seems to be something of an exception. I don't seem to hear about many open source programmers committing murders. Really, there are quite a lot of open source programmers out there, so it seems like we would hear about it more if many of them were committing murder. It may be much more likely to be news when it's the leader of a project like Reiser though. From my perspective, it's important to look at the actual numbers. It's a little hard find a direct statistic on the number of known murderers in the US. From what I can find that there are 180K+ people in prison for murder in the US, mostly in state prisons, but that's obviously not all the murderers since they do get released eventually. Based on actual murder rates and assumptions about how long a murderer might live after the murder, there could be anywhere from around 500K to 1 million murderers in the US. So, that would mean something like 1 in 330 to 1 in 660 people in the US is a murderer. It's hard to say for sure, but it seems like the murder rate among open source programmers is not that high. Among programming language creators specifically... Well, there are admittedly a lot of programming languages, but I'm not sure there are quite that many, so the statistics are tricky because of the small sample size.
On the other hand, many serial killers operate for years or decades before they get caught. Contrary to the popular depiction of them, most of the ones that are caught are a long way from geniuses. Frankly some of them seem to be dumb as posts or at least very careless when you hear their life stories. Of course, it's almost impossible to tell if that means that there are undetectable genius serial killers out there or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably most murderers are drug gang members who have received little education. Not the programmer demographic.
Re: (Score:0)
I've met a few that probably could be serial killers if they had the balls, just man-children really.
Re: (Score:0)
In the lineup there's one programmer who was also a serial killer. But he was not language inventor.
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't you identify to be both at the same time . . . ?
Randy Kraft [wikipedia.org], one of the people on the list, is both a programmer and a serial killer. But he is not a language designer.