I put Linus (with Linux and Git) way up at the top of the spectrum. Maybe Pike, Thompson and Ritchie are at this level.

A bit lower are other multi-hit inventors. Gavin King, inventor or Hibernate and Seam, is in this list.

Everybody else comes third. It's great to invent something useful. (A singleton.) As a software maintenance engineer, I recognize great maintenance engineers in this category, too.

I am deeply impressed by Torvalds. Git and Linux are huge.