Who are your developer heros?
I don't have a game dev hero but I am practically in love with Microsoft, C#, SQL Server, Win Server, VS, Office, .NET, MS Maths, MS Visio, MS Project, IE10 (yeh that's right IE made the list), DirectX etc etc.
Im like a code junky and MS just keep giving me all these technologies to get high on.
For video stuff, Michael Neidermayer.
For just being awesome (and compiler stuff), Matt Might.
Carmack for open sourcing some of the games that used to rule my teenage world, Sakaguchi for the story behind why FF was created, also several people on GD for being awesome and helping people learn and grow.
I suppose once upon a time it was John Carmack but, after working in the games industry I have come to admire anybody who makes games for a living. Wheather it is a one man indie to a huge 200+ team. There are coders out there who you have never heard of who can code circles around John Carmack and also people who suck at coding and math but still manage to dig deep and struggle through to make great games because they have a vision.
So if you code games give yourself a pat on the back.
I'd say Michael Morhaime Blizzard's co-founder and Carmack ofc. But as Buster2000 said, not for their programming's skill, instead for what they created!.
Kent Beck for Testing stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck
Jim Blinn for Graphics Stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Blinn
John Carmack for Doom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack
Jonathan Blow for proving an indie guy can make it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow
This talk was something else that made me interested: http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independent-games/
Jonathan Blow for braid, and John Carmack for Doom, Quake engine, and of course without quake engine there would be no gold source engine, and no half-life and counter-strike as it is today, no source engine, no team fortress 2 and so on :)
In one sense John Skeet. He has a depth of knowledge on C# and Java that is amazing. On the other end of the scale Bill Gates, because he successfully made it out of the programmer rat race with his skills and knowledge.
