Interview with Jon Skeet

[junto]

As a fellow Brit and as someone working in C# everyday, Jon Skeet is somewhat of a personal hero of mine. I can't count the number of times I've turned to StackOverflow and found the answer to have be written by him. Chappeau!

Interestingly we appear to have had similar paths to get to our careers. I too started off with BASIC and the BBC B Micro. I then went on to study Computer Science at GCSE, A-Level and then at university. Jon must be a similar age to me, so I'm guessing he also was one of the first to take GCSE's after the UK switched from the 'O-level' (1990-1991).

Great little interview. Thanks for sharing @eddie_31003.

[bohinjc]

off-topic, but it always amaze me how 'chappeau' finished with 2 'p', as did a lot of English words derived from middle/old french (single to double-n or double-p are common).

Out of curiosity from a non-native speaker : does the double-p makes it more idiomatic for native English speakers ?

[weavie]

Snap! Did my comp sci GCSE in 1990.

[johnny_reilly]

Quite apart from his obvious technical chops, I've always been impressed by Jon Skeet's unfailing politeness and helpfulness. He's a real role model to developers.

Whatta guy!

[S_A_P]

This guy has always impressed me. He works on Java at Google and spends a large chunk of time being a C# and .NET expert. Obviously C# and Java are semantically close to the point of nearly interchangeable, but the devil is in the details and he seems to have them down.

[V-2]

Java is years behind C# in most aspects. Of course it doesn't mean it follows the same path, but there's less to learn if you switch from (modern) C# to Java than the other way round.

[jimbobimbo]

I envy the way he manages to balance all commitments in his life. Pretty amazing.

[nstart]

Me too. I find myself frustrated with my inability to balance stuff every now and then. I would love to sit with Jon and just have him say "here.. here's where you are doing it wrong" and then find enlightenment. :D

[chdir]

I would vote for him as the most decent & helpful guy on Stackoverflow. I've always found his tone humble, which isn't very common these days. Really glad to have people like him around.

[gadders]

I'm guessing this is what they mean by a 10x programmer? :-)

[pmelendez]

And the Chuck Norris of programming :)

http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts

[AceJohnny2]

I'm vaguely aware of Jon Skeet from echoes from the Windows dev world, from which I've largely stayed detached.

Can someone explain the significance of Jon Skeet, preferebly in terms of "Facts" in the style of Bruce Schneier's [1] or Jeff Dean's [2]?

[1] http://www.schneierfacts.com/ [2] http://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts

[bgc]

Jon Skeet is a frequent contributor to StackOverflow.com[0], where he is known for being able to answer highly obscure questions with equally obscure answers[1].

[0] http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6841333/why-is-subtractin...

[egil]

He has also written an excellent C# book, C# in depth http://csharpindepth.com/ .

[pcmonk]

Stack Exchange has a convenient list:

http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts

[CmonDev]

Most good C# answers on the best dev Q&A website. Without working for Microsoft.

[barrkel]

He was well known as an MVP on the C# newsgroups at MS before SO started, too.

[j-hernandez]

Nice interview, I always enjoy reading his contributions on StackOverflow. I don't always understand what even the problem at hand is, but it's just a fascinating exercise to read some of his responses and the obscure facts behind them.

Science Fact: Jon Skeet cannot parse HTML using regular expressions [0]

0: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/537093

[WorldWideWayne]

I thought that Google engineers weren't allowed to use Windows.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Google produces some software for Windows - e.g. Chrome. How did you think they did that if they weren't allowed to use the OS?