Lorinda Cherry earned a Masters degree in 1969, so guessing she was born around 1948, meaning she'd be about 74 now. Steve Wozniak is 71, Stroustrup is 71, Larry Wall is 67, Bill Gates is 66, van Rossum is 66.

Torvalds at 52 is the most clearly "next generation" of those people.

John Carmack? Fabrice Bellard?

Carmack for sure, if we're talking about prolific producers who really advanced things outside of academia.

Dan Bernstein, Bryan Cantrill, Russ Cox, Udi Manber.

And of course we lost one of the brightest lights way too early in Aaron Swartz.

The only thing I know about Bryan Cantrill is that 'have you ever kissed a girl?' post he made to a Linux dev in the late 90s.

Funnily enough another hero, Miguel de Icaza, popped up in that thread too.

Can't help but think that those people mostly redid what their parent's generation invented, but in a more practical/commercial way, which is an achievement in itself, but of a completely different kind.