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Work on esbuild started at the start of 2020. It is primarily authored and maintained by Evan Wallace, who, in addition to making this tremendous contribution t

Work on esbuild started at the start of 2020. It is primarily authored and maintained by Evan Wallace, who, in addition to making this tremendous contribution to the JavaScript ecosystem, is the CTO and co-founder of Figma. Incredible output.

marton78 5y ago
Amazing. That means he does his job right! As a good CTO you shouldn't have anything to do. If you're caught up in work, you're doing it wrong.
- winrid 5y ago
  and he's building tools to optimize his teams.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > As a good CTO you shouldn't have anything to do. Is this for real? I mean, yeah, I don't think a CTO should be debugging build scripts, but hiring a great team, mentoring, aligning teams with a common technical vision, meeting with other company leaders to ensure the technical direction meets the needs of the business is an immense amount of work.
eloff 5y ago
I came here too say this. The man authored in the neighborhood of 100k LOC in a year, just on this. There's a living 10x dev, it's not a myth. What is ridiculous is to think someone can 10x a normal developer, it's more like the difference between the top few percent and the bottom 10-20%. Evan Wallace is a beast, no doubt.
- mr_pinnen 5y ago
  While he is certainly an excellent developer with great productivity to boot, LOC is an obtuse metric. For example there is a package-lock.json commit which is almost 20K lines. Otherwise I totally agree.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Agree, if anything it should be the reverse, less LOC produced means more efficient developer. But that's also a shit metric, as then people start cramming in as much complexity in every line as possible. Best would be if we could actually measure "complexity" in a objective manner.
- DrBazza 5y ago
  I really wish people would stop idolising so called '10x' developers. Anyone that is comfortable and familiar with their toolset (e.g. go, .NET, Java, C++) and has a deep understanding of a problem (and has likely solved it once already), can churn out code far, far, faster than an onlooker.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    And I really wish people would stop denying that there can be a massive difference in productivity from one individual to the next. It doesn't really matter what the theoretical limits are. What matters is the people you have and are hiring, and whether or not they are moving the needle. Maybe we can put aside whether or not there is No True 10x Developer. But there are certainly 0.1x developers, and even -1x developers.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      I totally agree with you, but I also love the context of this quote with your username ;)
  - Scarbutt 5y ago
    Being proficient in your tech stack helps your output sure but it's only one part (and a small one IMO) of the equation for creating something like esbuild. The author of esbuild surely has a strong knowledge of computer architecture, data structure and algorithms, operating systems and some math.
  - leetrout 5y ago
    Bingo. Add to it being able to work in YOUR headspace and not have to bring other people in a large-ish team along with you and you can get stuff done.
    - l30n4da5 5y ago
      Agreed. I think most developers find themselves more productive on their side projects than they are in the workplace because there is less overhead.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
I don't understand this perspective. Everyone only has so many hours in a day, and there's only so fast you can work. If he's writing esbuild that is taking time away from being the CTO of Figma. Either he's working a shit ton, one of the things (Esbuild or Figma) is being somewhat neglected, or his output is actually not as high as it looks.
- zerocount 5y ago
  Maybe there's not much to do as the CTO of Figma. Throwing time into Esbuild doesn't mean he's neglecting his CTO duties.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    In which case my last option would be relevant: > or his output is actually not as high as it looks
    - fvdessen 5y ago
      Frankly most of us would not be able to create esbuild even with all the time in the world.
- pixelrevision 5y ago
  The tool is likely helping Figma pretty directly by cutting developer build times.
- betageek 5y ago
  CTO and lead developer on a focused project are very different jobs - my guess would be he relaxes from the very strategy and soft-skill heavy day job by diving into a challenging problem that keeps his dev chops up and lets him focus on a finite problem.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    So working a shit ton then.
Aeolun 5y ago
Sounds like he solved his own problem?
todotask 5y ago
Surprise, I didn’t know who was the maintainer and was still unheard of back then until I shared on HN and it was a like wildfire.

marton78 5y ago

Amazing. That means he does his job right! As a good CTO you shouldn't have anything to do. If you're caught up in work, you're doing it wrong.

winrid 5y ago
and he's building tools to optimize his teams.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
> As a good CTO you shouldn't have anything to do. Is this for real? I mean, yeah, I don't think a CTO should be debugging build scripts, but hiring a great team, mentoring, aligning teams with a common technical vision, meeting with other company leaders to ensure the technical direction meets the needs of the business is an immense amount of work.

eloff 5y ago

I came here too say this. The man authored in the neighborhood of 100k LOC in a year, just on this. There's a living 10x dev, it's not a myth. What is ridiculous is to think someone can 10x a normal developer, it's more like the difference between the top few percent and the bottom 10-20%. Evan Wallace is a beast, no doubt.

mr_pinnen 5y ago
While he is certainly an excellent developer with great productivity to boot, LOC is an obtuse metric. For example there is a package-lock.json commit which is almost 20K lines. Otherwise I totally agree.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Agree, if anything it should be the reverse, less LOC produced means more efficient developer. But that's also a shit metric, as then people start cramming in as much complexity in every line as possible. Best would be if we could actually measure "complexity" in a objective manner.
DrBazza 5y ago
I really wish people would stop idolising so called '10x' developers. Anyone that is comfortable and familiar with their toolset (e.g. go, .NET, Java, C++) and has a deep understanding of a problem (and has likely solved it once already), can churn out code far, far, faster than an onlooker.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  And I really wish people would stop denying that there can be a massive difference in productivity from one individual to the next. It doesn't really matter what the theoretical limits are. What matters is the people you have and are hiring, and whether or not they are moving the needle. Maybe we can put aside whether or not there is No True 10x Developer. But there are certainly 0.1x developers, and even -1x developers.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I totally agree with you, but I also love the context of this quote with your username ;)
- Scarbutt 5y ago
  Being proficient in your tech stack helps your output sure but it's only one part (and a small one IMO) of the equation for creating something like esbuild. The author of esbuild surely has a strong knowledge of computer architecture, data structure and algorithms, operating systems and some math.
- leetrout 5y ago
  Bingo. Add to it being able to work in YOUR headspace and not have to bring other people in a large-ish team along with you and you can get stuff done.
  - l30n4da5 5y ago
    Agreed. I think most developers find themselves more productive on their side projects than they are in the workplace because there is less overhead.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

I don't understand this perspective. Everyone only has so many hours in a day, and there's only so fast you can work. If he's writing esbuild that is taking time away from being the CTO of Figma. Either he's working a shit ton, one of the things (Esbuild or Figma) is being somewhat neglected, or his output is actually not as high as it looks.

zerocount 5y ago
Maybe there's not much to do as the CTO of Figma. Throwing time into Esbuild doesn't mean he's neglecting his CTO duties.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  In which case my last option would be relevant: > or his output is actually not as high as it looks
  - fvdessen 5y ago
    Frankly most of us would not be able to create esbuild even with all the time in the world.
pixelrevision 5y ago
The tool is likely helping Figma pretty directly by cutting developer build times.
betageek 5y ago
CTO and lead developer on a focused project are very different jobs - my guess would be he relaxes from the very strategy and soft-skill heavy day job by diving into a challenging problem that keeps his dev chops up and lets him focus on a finite problem.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  So working a shit ton then.

Aeolun 5y ago

Sounds like he solved his own problem?

todotask 5y ago

Surprise, I didn’t know who was the maintainer and was still unheard of back then until I shared on HN and it was a like wildfire.