Steve Yegge is an American computer

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

and

blogger A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

who is known for writing about

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s, productivity and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

culture through his "Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants" site, followed by "Stevey's Blog Rants."

Education

Yegge began high school at 11 and graduated when he was 14. During his youth, Yegge played guitar in garage bands. After turning 18, Yegge joined the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

and attended

Nuclear Power School Nuclear Power School (NPS) is a technical school operated by the U.S. Navy in Goose Creek, South Carolina as a central part of a program that trains enlisted sailors, officers, KAPL civilians and Bettis civilians for shipboard nuclear power pl ...

to become a nuclear reactor operator. Yegge received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Career

Yegge began his career as a computer programmer at GeoWorks in 1992. From 1998 to 2005, he worked as a Senior Manager of Software Development at

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

. From 2005 to 2018, Yegge worked as a Senior Staff Software Engineer at

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Kirkland, Washington Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state. The city's downto ...

. In 2018, Yegge left Google to join Grab, a ridesharing company based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

with an American hub in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. After leaving Google, Yegge was interviewed by

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

about why he left the company. Yegge stated that the company had grown "too conservative" and was "no longer innovative." In May 2020, Yegge announced that he would be leaving Grab to focus on the development of ''

Wyvern A wyvern ( , sometimes spelled wivern) is a legendary winged dragon that has two legs. The wyvern in its various forms is important in heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States, Unit ...

, ''a video game he has been working on independently since 1995. In October 2022, Yegge joined Sourcegraph as Head of Engineering.

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 A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...

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". Upon leaving Google for Grab, Yegge published a 5000-word post in which he critiqued what he claimed is Google's lack of innovation. Yegge accidentally made an internal Google memo public on

Google+ Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

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 Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...

"Dread Pirate Bezos"). Google co-founder

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was the ...

stated that he would still have his job. ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reporter Melissa Bell stated that Yegge's public rant was a ''

Jerry Maguire ''Jerry Maguire'' is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama sports film written, produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe; it stars Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, and Regina King. Produced in part by James L. Brooks, it was inspi ...

'' moment.

Software

Yegge released the

graphical MUD A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

''in 2001 through his company Cabochon Inc. Yegge advocates server-side

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

for development. After failing to convince Google to adopt

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web p ...

, he ported Rails to JavaScript, creating the "Rhino on Rails" project. In 2008, Yegge was interviewed for the

Google Code Google Developers (previously Google Code) , application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers usin ...

Blog and discussed the "Rhino on Rails" project. His work on "Rhino on Rails" has inspired at least one open-source clone, LatteJS.

Presentations

In 2007, Yegge was a speaker at the

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universi ...

13th annual reflections❘projections Conference. In May 2008, Yegge presented a talk on dynamic languages at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. 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".

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 Box Don Box is a former Microsoft Technical Fellow. Before joining Microsoft in 2002, Box was a contributing editor and columnist at ''Microsoft Systems Journal'', which later became ''MSDN Magazine'', and was one of the founders of DevelopMentor, a ...

who referred t
one of Steve's blog posts
from his own blog: "Had this just been another installment in the

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

-vs-

XEmacs XEmacs is a graphical- and console-based text editor which runs on almost any Unix-like operating system as well as Microsoft Windows. XEmacs is a fork, based on a version of GNU Emacs from the late 1980s. Any user can download, use, and modify XE ...

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."

References

External links

Steve Yegge's blog
*
Steve Yegge's internal Amazon blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yegge, Steve Computer programmers Living people American male bloggers American bloggers MUD developers Emacs Year of birth missing (living people)