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Jeff Atwood
American software developer (born 1970) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jeff Atwood (born 1970) is an American software developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur. He co-founded the question-and-answer network Stack Exchange, which contains the Stack Overflow website for computer programming questions.[4] He is the owner and writer of the computer programming blog Coding Horror, focused on programming and human factors.[5] As of 2012, his most recent project was Discourse, an open source Internet discussion platform.[3]
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In a 2007 blog post, Atwood proposed the following rule related to the rule of least power, calling it Atwood's law:[6] "Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript".[7]
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Career
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Atwood started a programming blog, Coding Horror, in 2004. As a result, he met Joel Spolsky.[8] In 2008, together with Spolsky, Atwood founded Stack Overflow, a programming question-and-answer website.[9] The site was followed by Server Fault for system administrators and Super User for general computer-related questions, eventually becoming the Stack Exchange network which includes many Q&A websites about topics decided on by the community.[10]
From 2008 to 2014, Atwood and Spolsky published a weekly podcast covering the progress on Stack Exchange and a wide range of software development issues. Jeff Atwood was also a keynote presenter at the 2008 Canadian University Software Engineering Conference.[11]
In February 2012, Atwood left Stack Exchange so he could spend more time with his family.[12]
On February 5, 2013, Atwood announced his new company, Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc. Its flagship product is an open source next-generation discussion platform called Discourse.[13] Atwood and others developed it out of their frustration with current bulletin board software that hadn't seemed to evolve since 1990.[14] On February 1, 2023, he stepped down as CEO and assumed the role of Executive Chairman.[15]
He also launched a mechanical keyboard called CODE in 2013.[16]
In 2021, Stack Overflow was sold to Prosus for $1.8 billion.[17][18]
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Philanthropy
In January 2025, Atwood announced one million dollar gifts to eight non-profit organizations,[18][19] including The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ+ youth.[20] In addition, Children’s Hunger Fund, First Generation Investors, Global Refuge, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, PEN America, Planned Parenthood, and Team Rubicon received donations from Atwood and his family.[18][19][20]
Atwood and his family have contributed to Alameda Post and the Alameda Food Bank.[18]
Atwood donated $1.5 million to 404 Media, a nonprofit news site.[18]
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Personal
Atwood is a resident of Alameda, California.[18] He and his partner, Betsy Burton, have three kids.[18]
Books
- The ASP.NET 2.0 Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, by Scott Allen, Jeff Atwood, Wyatt Barnett, Jon Galloway and Phil Haack. ISBN 978-0980285819
- Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code. ISBN 9781478300540
References
External links
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