Skip to main content

Slate: “How [UW CSE Ph.D. alum] Google’s Jeff Dean became the Chuck Norris of the Internet”

jd“Jeff Dean facts aren’t, well, true. But the fact that someone went to the trouble to make up Chuck Norris-esque exploits about Dean is remarkable. That’s because Jeff Dean is a software engineer, and software engineers are not like Chuck Norris. For one thing, they’re not lone rangers—software development is an inherently collaborative enterprise. For another, they rarely shoot cowboys with an Uzi.

“Nevertheless, on April Fool’s Day 2007, some admiring young Google engineers saw fit to bestow upon Jeff Dean the honor of a website extolling his programming achievements. For instance:

  • Compilers don’t warn Jeff Dean. Jeff Dean warns compilers.
  • Jeff Dean writes directly in binary. He then writes the source code as documentation for other developers.
  • When Jeff Dean has an ergonomic evaluation, it is for the protection of his keyboard.
  • Jeff Dean was forced to invent asynchronous APIs one day when he optimized a function so that it returned before it was invoked.”

Read more here.