Top 30 LDraw parts authors

[Steffen]

In lugnet.cad, Philippe Hurbain wrote:
> I'm said to be a prolific parts author, so I wanted to verify the truth
> behind... A few find in files, some Excel work and a bit of manual cleaning
> gives the result below. This was done on the full collection of official LDraw
> parts + unofficial ones up to march 2011.
>
> Have fun!
>
> Philo


source:
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/?n=17710


PS
I took this from Google's cached version of the site, as lugnet currently seems to be down

[Tim Gould]

Since lugnet is back up for a bit...

Code:

'm said to be a prolific parts author, so I wanted to verify the truth
behind... A few find in files, some Excel work and a bit of manual cleaning
gives the result below. This was done on the full collection of official LDraw
parts + unofficial ones up to march 2011.

Have fun!

Philo

---------------------------------------
Parts Author's name
----------------------------------------------------------------
684 James Jessiman
535 Philippe Hurbain [Philo]
496 Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]
400 Chris Dee [cwdee]
329 Tore Eriksson [simlego]
318 J.C. Tchang [tchang]
317 Steffen [Steffen]
248 Guy Vivan [guyvivan]
213 Andy Westrate [westrate]
185 Alex Taylor [anathema]
166 Steve Bliss [sbliss]
145 Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]
139 Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]
138 Marc Klein [marckl]
114 Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]
95 Thomas Burger [grapeape]
92 Arne Hackstein
87 Paul Easter [pneaster]
84 Donald Sutter [technog]
77 Bernd Broich [bbroich]
74 Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]
70 John Van Zwieten [jvan]
68 Santeri Piippo [arezey]
57 William Howard [WilliamH]
43 Tony Hafner [hafhead]
42 Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]
39 John Riley [jriley]
35 Lutz Uhlmann [El-Lutzo]
35 Orion Pobursky [OrionP]
33 Joerg Sommerer [Brickaneer]

[Steffen]

I was curious again and updated the list above to the most recent parts update 2012-02,
counting the Author: lines in the \p, \parts and \parts\s files:

Code:

Philippe Hurbain [Philo]               921
James Jessiman                         779
Chris Dee [cwdee]                      555
Steffen [Steffen]                      544
Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]          494
Guy Vivan [guyvivan]                   409
Alex Taylor [anathema]                 373
Tore Eriksson [Tore_Eriksson]          346
J.C. Tchang [tchang]                   338
Andy Westrate [westrate]               248
Steve Bliss [sbliss]                   225
Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]              225
Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]              187
Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]            169
Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]                166
Marc Klein [marckl]                    162
Donald Sutter [technog]                154
Paul Easter [pneaster]                 138
Bernd Broich [bbroich]                 121
John Van Zwieten [jvan]                119
Thomas Burger [grapeape]               108
Santeri Piippo [arezey]                105
Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]            103
William Howard [WilliamH]              100
Joerg Sommerer [Brickaneer]             94
Arne Hackstein                          90
John Riley [jriley]                     75
Orion Pobursky [OrionP]                 72
Tim Gould [timgould]                    65
Mark Kennedy [mkennedy]                 60

[Philippe Hurbain]

Imho you should only count in parts folder...

[Steffen]

Counting only the \PARTS folder of our parts collection up to and including parts update 2012-02
yields as top-30-authors:

Code:

James Jessiman                         679
Philippe Hurbain [Philo]               559
Chris Dee [cwdee]                      410
Steffen [Steffen]                      410
Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]          363
Tore Eriksson [Tore_Eriksson]          320
J.C. Tchang [tchang]                   269
Guy Vivan [guyvivan]                   196
Alex Taylor [anathema]                 169
Andy Westrate [westrate]               164
Steve Bliss [sbliss]                   160
Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]              137
Marc Klein [marckl]                    130
Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]                116
Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]              113
Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]            101
Thomas Burger [grapeape]                90
Arne Hackstein                          90
Paul Easter [pneaster]                  85
Donald Sutter [technog]                 82
Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]             77
Bernd Broich [bbroich]                  75
John Van Zwieten [jvan]                 69
Tim Gould [timgould]                    53
William Howard [WilliamH]               50
Joerg Sommerer [Brickaneer]             49
Santeri Piippo [arezey]                 43
Tony Hafner [hafhead]                   43
Christian Neumann [Wesley]              43
John Riley [jriley]                     36

[Steffen]

Counting only the \PARTS folder of our parts collection up to and including parts update 2013-01
yields as top-30-authors:

Code:

Philippe Hurbain     698
James Jessiman       679
Chris Dee            421
Steffen              419
Michael Heidemann    401
J.C. Tchang          334
Tore Eriksson        325
Guy Vivan            206
Alex Taylor          179
Andy Westrate        172
Steve Bliss          163
Magnus Forsberg      162
Franklin W. Cain     137
Marc Klein           134
Niels Karsdorp       120
Willy Tschager       103
Arne Hackstein        90
Thomas Burger         90
Donald Sutter         88
Paul Easter           85
Nils Schmidt          82
Bernd Broich          77
Christian Neumann     70
Howard Lande          68
John Van Zwieten      68
Joerg Sommerer        63
Tim Gould             56
Santeri Piippo        53
Max Martin Richter    50
William Howard        50

[Travis Cobbs]

Congratulations Philo on surpassing James. 139 new files in the latest update seems like a lot even for you.

[Santeri Piippo]

I'm still that far down..? oh well, my parts are way more complex than your puny bricks and patterns anyway.

[Steffen]

Counting only the \PARTS folder of our parts collection up to and including parts update 2013-02,
and leaving out all trivial "=" alias and "~moved to" files yields as top-31-authors:

Code:

Philippe Hurbain     857
James Jessiman       685
Steffen              429
Michael Heidemann    408
Chris Dee            398
J.C. Tchang          366
Tore Eriksson        325
Magnus Forsberg      234
Guy Vivan            208
Alex Taylor          182
Andy Westrate        178
Steve Bliss          150
Marc Klein           137
Franklin W. Cain     137
Niels Karsdorp       120
Willy Tschager       104
Arne Hackstein        91
Thomas Burger         90
Donald Sutter         89
Paul Easter           87
Nils Schmidt          82
Max Martin Richter    79
Bernd Broich          76
Christian Neumann     73
Howard Lande          69
John Van Zwieten      68
Joerg Sommerer        67
Santeri Piippo        56
Tim Gould             56
Daniel Goerner        48
William Howard        48

EDIT: re-counted numbers by leaving out trivial "=" aliases and "~moved to" files.

[Rolf Osterthun]

Hey Steffen,

thanks for the analysis. But I have one suggestion for improvement: In my opinion the alias files should not have the same weight like the original files (suggestion alias weight=0).

Rolf

[Steffen]

oh, definitely. will re-count. also have to leave out moved-to's.

by the way, the counting is just for fun. this is not a race. and: modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones. so please nobody misunderstand my post.

[Michael Heidemann]

Maybe also the number of lines should be taken into consideration, as a more complex part would have more lines (subparts inlined).

[Steffen]

ugh, I didn't want to make this academic research...
and also doing that line count may lead to the effect that people think "more lines is better".
it is not. the art is, as in programming, to create the same geometry with as _few_ lines as possible...
so for now I will just stick to simply counting files, leaving out the trivial aliases and moved-to's.
I find this a reasonable way of counting, as each part file represents an entity you can build with, regardless if it is complex or not.

[Michael Horvath]

Yeah, James is going to have to work hard to catch up again.

[Santeri Piippo]

Gah, I really need to stop specializing in Bionicle parts and find some easy patterns to do in 10 minutes. :p

Yeah, James is going to have to work hard to catch up again.

... :|

[Tim Gould]

FYI I split this off to a new topic. I got very confused scrolling down the top 30 part authors only to find completely unrelated comments about forum tags

[Michael Horvath]

There should be a separate count for the number of polygons created.

[Max Martin Richter]

Lets count the polygons on a detailed 48x48 baseplate... :-)

/Max

[Michael Heidemann]

That' a good point for _not_ counting polygons

Let's count the part files like Steffen suggests. I feel thats a good compromize .
I am sure that half of my parts are now out of the race

[Steffen]

I've re-counted and updated the numbers above.

[Michael Horvath]

Maybe also the number of lines should be taken into consideration, as a more complex part would have more lines (subparts inlined).

This sounds OK.

[Michael Heidemann]

We have already thrown away this idea as a good part author can use less lines and that should be our goal

[Chris Dee]

Agreed.

I once worked in a programming team where it was suggested (by management) that performance should be measured in terms of number of lines of code produced. A very BAD idea that was quickly abandoned.

[Michael Horvath]

We have already thrown away this idea as a good part author can use less lines and that should be our goal

Then we must rank people by the fewest number of lines used.

[Steffen]

yes, same here.
that always leads to bloating and copy+paste instead of unifying.
the result is a terrible pile of baby code.
a typical, frequent error done by managers who never have programmed
and measure code like they measure trainloads of coal: by sheer counting.

[Steffen]

Counting only the \PARTS folder of our parts collection up to and including parts update 2015-01,
and leaving out all trivial "=" alias and "~moved to" files yields as top-30-authors:

Code:

Philippe Hurbain                1258
James Jessiman                   679
Steffen                          444
Michael Heidemann                431
Chris Dee                        417
J.C. Tchang                      415
Magnus Forsberg                  400
Tore Eriksson                    325
Guy Vivan                        215
Andy Westrate                    189
Alex Taylor                      187
Christian Neumann                172
Steve Bliss                      150
Marc Klein                       138
Franklin W. Cain                 137
Niels Karsdorp                   121
Willy Tschager                   120
Damien Roux                      103
Max Martin Richter               103
Thomas Burger                     91
Arne Hackstein                    91
Donald Sutter                     90
Paul Easter                       87
Nils Schmidt                      84
Howard Lande                      78
Bernd Broich                      76
John Van Zwieten                  69
Stan Isachenko                    69
Joerg Sommerer                    68
Santeri Piippo                    63

This counting is just for fun - part authoring is not a race.
And: modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones, of course.

[Willy Tschager]

What impresses me most is the number of people we lost on the way!

w.

PS. Who is this Philippe Hurbain guy at the top?

[Santeri Piippo]

Uh oh. I'm gonna fall off the list soon! Gotta drop out of university to work on more LDraw parts.

[Steffen]

Here is an update of the statistics up to and including parts update 2018-02.

As said above: This counting is just for fun - part authoring is not a race:
Modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones.

With update 2018-02, we have exactly 11000 files in the PARTS folder.
Not counting "=" aliases and "~moved to" files, 9924 real PARTS files remain.
Counting the authors of those yields these top-30-authors:

Code:

  1851   Philippe Hurbain            [Philo]
   675   James Jessiman
   635   Magnus Forsberg             [MagFors]
   506   Steffen                     [Steffen]
   439   Chris Dee                   [cwdee]
   435   Michael Heidemann           [mikeheide]
   429   J.C. Tchang                 [tchang]
   342   Tore Eriksson               [Tore_Eriksson]
   234   Christian Neumann           [Wesley]
   222   Guy Vivan                   [guyvivan]
   191   Andy Westrate               [westrate]
   188   Alex Taylor                 [anathema]
   182   Damien Roux                 [Darats]
   173   Willy Tschager              [Holly-Wood]
   158   Gerald Lasser               [GeraldLasser]
   151   Steve Bliss                 [sbliss]
   139   Marc Klein                  [marckl]
   137   Franklin W. Cain            [fwcain]
   134   Max Martin Richter          [MMR1988]
   121   Niels Karsdorp              [nielsk]
    91   Donald Sutter               [technog]
    91   Arne Hackstein
    90   Thomas Burger               [grapeape]
    88   Paul Easter                 [pneaster]
    87   Nils Schmidt                [BlackBrick89]
    84   Howard Lande                [HowardLande]
    79   Bernd Broich                [bbroich]
    76   Santeri Piippo              [arezey]
    73   Stan Isachenko              [angmarec]
    70   Joerg Sommerer              [Brickaneer]

[Philippe Hurbain]

[Michael Heidemann]

I am still in the top ten - great

[Steffen]

Here is an update of the statistics up to and including parts update 2019-03.

As said above: This counting is just for fun - part authoring is not a race:
Modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones.

With update 2019-03, we have 12255 files in the PARTS folder.
Not counting "=" aliases and "~moved to" files, 11106 real PARTS files remain.
Counting the authors of those yields these top-30-authors:

Code:

   2173 Philippe Hurbain [Philo]
    744 Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]
    674 James Jessiman
    537 Steffen [Steffen]
    456 J.C. Tchang [tchang]
    450 Chris Dee [cwdee]
    437 Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]
    348 Tore Eriksson [Tore_Eriksson]
    261 Gerald Lasser [GeraldLasser]
    234 Christian Neumann [Wesley]
    225 Guy Vivan [guyvivan]
    217 Damien Roux [Darats]
    204 Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]
    192 Andy Westrate [westrate]
    191 Alex Taylor [anathema]
    155 Johann Eisner [technicbasics]
    153 Max Martin Richter [MMR1988]
    151 Steve Bliss [sbliss]
    148 Ulrich Röder [UR]
    138 Marc Klein [marckl]
    137 Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]
    121 Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]
     93 Howard Lande [HowardLande]
     91 Thomas Burger [grapeape]
     91 Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]
     91 Donald Sutter [technog]
     91 Arne Hackstein
     89 Massimo Maso [Sirio]
     88 Paul Easter [pneaster]
     81 Santeri Piippo [arezey]

[Steffen]

Here is an update of the statistics up to and including parts update 2020-01.

As said above: This counting is just for fun - part authoring is not a race:
Modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones.

With update 2020-01, we have 12698 files in the PARTS folder.
Not counting "=" aliases and "~moved to" files, 11526 real PARTS files remain.
Counting the authors of those yields these top-30-authors:

Code:

2348 Philippe Hurbain [Philo]
769 Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]
674 James Jessiman
539 Steffen [Steffen]
458 J.C. Tchang [tchang]
455 Chris Dee [cwdee]
438 Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]
348 Tore Eriksson [Tore_Eriksson]
313 Gerald Lasser [GeraldLasser]
234 Christian Neumann [Wesley]
223 Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]
223 Guy Vivan [guyvivan]
218 Damien Roux [Darats]
203 Alex Taylor [anathema]
193 Andy Westrate [westrate]
160 Johann Eisner [technicbasics]
153 Max Martin Richter [MMR1988]
151 Steve Bliss [sbliss]
150 Ulrich Röder [UR]
138 Marc Klein [marckl]
137 Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]
120 Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]
107 Vincent Messenet [Cheenzo]
  98 Massimo Maso [Sirio]
  95 Howard Lande [HowardLande]
  91 Thomas Burger [grapeape]
  91 Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]
  91 Donald Sutter [technog]
  91 Arne Hackstein
  89 Evert-Jan Boer [ejboer]

[Steffen]

Here is an update of the statistics up to and including parts update 2020-02.

As said above: This counting is just for fun - part authoring is not a race:
Modeling 1 complex part can be much more difficult than 10 easy ones.

With update 2020-02, we have 13207 files in the PARTS folder.
Not counting "=" aliases and "~moved to" files, 12016 real PARTS files remain.
Counting the authors of those yields these top-30-authors:

Code:

2437 Philippe Hurbain [Philo]
 804 Magnus Forsberg [MagFors]
 674 James Jessiman
 554 Steffen [Steffen]
 498 Chris Dee [cwdee]
 460 J.C. Tchang [tchang]
 440 Michael Heidemann [mikeheide]
 355 Gerald Lasser [GeraldLasser]
 349 Tore Eriksson [Tore_Eriksson]
 234 Christian Neumann [Wesley]
 229 Willy Tschager [Holly-Wood]
 228 Guy Vivan [guyvivan]
 221 Damien Roux [Darats]
 208 Alex Taylor [anathema]
 194 Andy Westrate [westrate]
 164 Ulrich Röder [UR]
 162 Johann Eisner [technicbasics]
 155 Max Martin Richter [MMR1988]
 151 Steve Bliss [sbliss]
 150 Vincent Messenet [Cheenzo]
 138 Marc Klein [marckl]
 137 Franklin W. Cain [fwcain]
 128 Evert-Jan Boer [ejboer]
 120 Niels Karsdorp [nielsk]
 113 Massimo Maso [Sirio]
  97 Howard Lande [HowardLande]
  91 Thomas Burger [grapeape]
  91 Nils Schmidt [BlackBrick89]
  91 Donald Sutter [technog]
  91 Arne Hackstein

[Gerald Lasser]

Always amazing to see Philo's list!

You need to make one of the parts that are still on the PT, who's got most in the backlog :-)

[Orion Pobursky]

Always amazing to see Philo's list!

You need to make one of the parts that are still on the PT, who's got most in the backlog :-)

Working on it. I've written code to database the library info so pulling this information shouldn't be too hard.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Here's an image of the numbers:

   

[N. W. Perry]

…and I am very pleased to have five humble parts in the official library. :-)

(So far mostly patterns and little geometric tweaks to existing parts. I have yet to create a completely new part, other than stickers, but my re-build of 4208 is my first real attempt at building new geometry.)

[Willy Tschager]

The first number in front of Philo's part count is clearly an error. Would you please just delete it  

w.