Anyway, in all honesty NiXiLL/Lumz is the most skilled programmer that's played Blockland. I don't mean to discount other people's skills, but to this day NiXiLL is the most eclectic and skilled programmer I know. As a scripter, most of you do not know him because he tapered off playing before a lot of you showed up, but he created tons of groundbreaking mods on his server that really pushed the boundaries of how you can manipulate Torque.
While I think NiXiLL is the most skilled programmer I know, Trigun is the most talented programmer I know. I've never worked on a project with Trigun and not learned something extremely valuable from the experience. Not to mention he's the head of the computer science club at his school and works as a programmer for onboard computers on rockets.
I often view Truce as the spawn of NiXiLL, he got the benefit of learning more than anyone else from NiXiLL. He's definitely another top grade programmer and possibly the most academically intelligent of the lot, this silly guy declined admission to MIT.
Ephialtes is probably the go-to guy for "best blockland scripter." This is obviously because of RTB. While he's obviously a very talented programmer, I think his best attribute lies in his ability to make complete experiences from start to finish. RTB simply could not serve the function it does if it didn't have such a well rounded user experience and flawless server handling. He's excellent at integration and design. This in itself is a rare and extremely desirable trait for programmers. In the same vein, Lub is very good at infrastructure development. He's also talented in design which makes him a really good candidate for webapp development. This kind of skill is however divergent from the traditional skill associated with Blockland scripters.
Port is an immature but very promising programmer. He has obvious innate talent for programming and in a way reminds me of NiXiLL. He needs to step outside of his bounds of comfort before his skills will become fully mature though, he's stuck in his comfort zone using Python and other scripting languages with very cushy libraries to go about his business. I'm sure that with time he will branch out into more languages and absorb the techniques and quirks each new language teaches to become a full fledged professional programmer of the likes of the other names on this list.
I have very little to comment about Marble Man, he has pumped out a ton of Add-Ons of mediocre quality but nothing that demonstrates his true skill. This isn't to say he has none, but don't mistake quantity for quality. It feels as though he is more interested in making people think he's a really good programmer than he is in actually becoming one.
Brian Smith has extremely immature and volatile abilities. Some times he will write code that surprises me how well it's designed and written, and other times I have a tough time forcing me to read through it. He is, however, a clear winner for the youngest name on this list. If he sticks with Blockland, I could see him attaining more fame as a modder in time.
If I've neglected to mention your name on this list, it's not because I don't think you're a skilled programmer. I just don't really feel it's my place to be evaluating people who I don't believe I've seen the abilities of to their full extent.
