Steve Albini and Avi Bryant: Separated at Birth?

December 9, 2007 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Avi Bryant is the Steve Albini of web development. Or maybe it's the other way around. Bryant is a Smalltalk programmer famous for creating Seaside, a web development framework that reverses a lot of the common assumptions shared by its peers and competitors; Albini is a musician and record producer famous for his uncompromising focus on making recordings that serve as authentic documents of bands' natural sounds.

Albini and Bryant share a singular style of self-presentation that combines a penchant for no-punches-pulled expression with a kind of gregarious grouchiness to build a strong sense of their own authenticity and authority. This style lets them reject much of the common wisdom in their respective fields — making everyone else seem simple minded (and possibly evil) for not doing so — while retaining a measure of folksy charm.

They even sound and look a little alike (if you can make your mind's eye bridge the beard/glasses divide).