That doesn’t take away from any of his success, which has been immense (anybody who has made over a billion is obviously amazing and had the ultimate life) but he has become too much of a cult figure in comparison to others in that stratosphere
Unpopular would be the better word. We were nerds. Revenge of the Nerds was about people like us: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088000/
I know that when I came across an article where Wil Wheaton was complaining about CUPS and how bad printer drivers were in linux I was tickled pink.
Over time, as society became more aware of the value this industry brings, it's brought it more mainstream and also brought a lot more people into it (different types of people). But at the time I think the other posters assessment was spot on.
Like you, I never cared either, but I also think what they said is true.
I didn't know who PG was until recently. I knew he was well respected on HN but I've never found that much value in his blog posts either. Maybe people like his writings in the light of his achievements, rather than for their intrinsic values.
But I’ve learnt a lot more from others, who are not nearly as successful.
This sort of interesting writing seems to have stopped in general. Spolsky and Yegge are other positive examples from that era, which of course is just 10 years ago.
What they, and you, fail to realize, is that after the copycats have come in, the pioneer looks outdated. But they are the ones standing on his shoulders, even if, with the benefit of hindsight, they've found more effective ways to spread the same message.
This was a liberal-arts school and the professor had no particular technology or business background; I’m still not sure how she came across them.
I don't place any blame on him personally, it's just that his day-to-day is so removed from anything close to ours that his musings are... irrelevant for the vast majority.
[0] I guess? Is there an Absurdly Lucky DotCom Success Bias?
I’ve heard great things about On Lisp, so will read it when I get to a more advanced level. But honestly I feel like I could write a better ANSI Common Lisp book, it has so many convoluted parts. That said, it was written in the mid 90s so it isn’t correct to judge a book after 20+ years.
I do recommend On Lisp for people who want to understand and get a feel for lispy ways to solve problems... but, fair warning: I did already have a very solid grasp of programming in general via C, C++, Python, O'Caml, a little bit of Haskell (at the time) when I read it. So... YMMV.
If you want a good book on paradigms in general, I'd recommend something else.