Are there any famous one-man-army programmers?

Question

Lately I have been learning of more and more programmers who think that if they were working alone, they would be faster and would deliver more quality. Usually that feeling is attached to a feeling that they do the best programming in their team and at the end of the day the idea is quite plausible. If they ARE doing the best programming, and worked alone (and more maybe) the final result would be a better piece of software.

I know this idea would only work if you were passionate enough to work 24/7, on a deadline, with great discipline.

So after considering the idea and trying to learn a little more, I wonder if there are famous one-man-army programmers that have delivered any (useful) software in the past?

Net productivity drops when hours go to high. Don't assume the best of the best are there merely because they invest more time. If that were the case, anyone could become a great programmer.
Most of the answers are wrong. Anders didn't build C# or Turbo Pascal all by himself, for example.
Its weird that the number of votes to close is constant, while this question have 22 up votes and 14 favs, it only needs 4 votes to have it closed huh?

John Rudy · Answer 1 · 2009-02-09 21:07:27Z

In the gaming world:

Jon Van Caneghem - Known for the Might and Magic series, he single-handedly wrote, designed and developed the first entry in the series, with just a little help for artwork.
Dan Bunten - Created M.U.L.E., Seven Cities of Gold and a variety of other games, again, back in the early days when game designers were one-man (and, come 1992 for her, one-woman) armies.
Bill Budge - Created Pinball Construction Set, alongside many other games. From scratch. Himself. A great Gamasutra piece on PCS's legacy was published recently.

Not to mention all the Atari alumni who went on to Activision. Remember: In the early days, these were all one-man jobs.

A lot of early games were one-man-shows. The last couple assembly language games I worked on had 3 or 4 people. This was before source control and we had nightmarish Friday code integrations.

Richard Marquez · Answer 2 · 2009-02-21 01:40:27Z

up vote 15 down vote

Bram Moolenaar -- wrote almost all of VIM by himself :]

answered Feb 21 '09 at 1:40

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Richard Marquez

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Curse the day! I am still avoiding vim, but it's always waiting in ambush. – Yar Jun 29 '09 at 18:06

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Rayne · Answer 3 · 2009-02-09 20:42:31Z

up vote 14 down vote

John McCarthy -- wrote the first version of lisp

answered Feb 9 '09 at 20:42

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Rayne

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ICBW, but I thought he designed it as a language to run on a chalkboard. One/more of his students surprised him by actually implementing it. – Alister Bulman Apr 10 '09 at 19:37

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+1 - the original implementation of 'eval' was done by a grad student. – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Jun 19 '09 at 8:43

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That grad student was Steve Russell, and it was for the IBM 704. He's also the creator of Spacewar!, one of the first video games. – Andrew Gwozdziewycz Feb 12 '11 at 22:40

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Craig O · Answer 4 · 2009-02-09 22:29:25Z

Nick Bradbury. He wrote HomeSite, TopStyle, and FeedDemon. All three programs top notch. Plus, he pays a lot of attention to his users - that can't be easy for a one-man shop.

ZiG · Answer 5 · 2009-06-19 07:47:36Z

up vote 12 down vote

Joe Hewitt, creator of Firebug and DOM Inspector.

I love Firebug. It made web page debugging way easier.

answered Jun 19 '09 at 7:47

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ZiG

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Robert Davis · Answer 6 · 2010-02-18 14:52:53Z

up vote 12 down vote

I can't believe I'm the first person to mention this:

Alan Turing

answered Feb 18 '10 at 14:52

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Robert Davis

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Joe · Answer 7 · 2009-02-09 23:13:21Z

Simon Tatham wrote PuTTY. Arguably, one of the most popular [citation needed] windows SSH clients.

Matt Wright wrote a lot of (in)famous Perl scripts that are still in use.

user62617 · Answer 8 · 2009-02-10 01:17:55Z

up vote 11 down vote

Markus Frind CEO of Plentyoffish.com

One man show . Created one of largest dating site by himself using asp.net Gross upwards of 30k day .

answered Feb 10 '09 at 1:17

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user62617

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JohnFx · Answer 9 · 2009-02-21 01:19:03Z

up vote 11 down vote

Al Gore - He wrote the entire Internet!

answered Feb 21 '09 at 1:19

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JohnFx

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Aww, c'mon. It was a fluff question. Fluff answers should get some love too. – JohnFx Mar 4 '09 at 23:33

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They're just trying to reward you with a Peer Pressure badge. :) – chaos Mar 11 '09 at 3:11

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CraigTP · Answer 10 · 2009-02-09 21:09:41Z

There are so many great answers here, but I'll add in my own suggestions, and these come from the 1980's heydays of computer games on the Commodore 64:

Andrew Braybrook (Paradroid, Morpheus, Gribbly's Day Out)

Archer MacLean (Jimmy White's Snooker, Dropzone)

Stavros Fasoulas (Sanxion, Delta)

Martin Walker (Citadel)

Jon Hare/Chris Yates (aka Sensible Software) (Wizball, Sensible Soccer)

Ok, that last one is more of a "two-man" army, however, many of these guys worked (mostly) alone, coded mostly in assembler (6510) and also did sound, music and graphics all by themselves.

(Useless trivia - My gravatar is Gribbly Grobbly from Gribbly's day out!)

Mike Dunlavey · Answer 11 · 2009-02-09 22:16:09Z

up vote 10 down vote

Richard Greenblatt, wrote much stuff at MIT AI Lab, including chess program, Lisp Machine, etc. etc.

answered Feb 9 '09 at 22:16

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Mike Dunlavey

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Also mentioned in the book hackers, by Steven Levy. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative! – tsilb Feb 9 '09 at 23:14

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psant · Answer 12 · 2009-02-10 03:34:56Z

up vote 10 down vote

Has anyone mentioned Gary Kildall (CP/M) or are you guys too young to remember?

answered Feb 10 '09 at 3:34

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psant

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Lurker Indeed · Answer 13 · 2009-02-13 17:46:46Z

up vote 10 down vote

Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster.

answered Feb 13 '09 at 17:46

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Lurker Indeed

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David HAust · Answer 14 · 2009-02-10 03:12:16Z

up vote 9 down vote

Charles Babbage - Originator of the concept of a programmable computer.

answered Feb 10 '09 at 3:12

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David HAust

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Max Lybbert · Answer 15 · 2009-02-12 22:13:57Z

Walter Bright was once a one-man show for several years when it came to Digital Mars' C++ compiler. He also started the D language and wrote a C++ version of Empire by himself (later ported it to D).