Yes, ranking requires reducing to a single dimension where all interesting things are multi-dimensions. This is a lossy process, which often tells more about the one(s) doing the ranking than what's ranked.

I was thinking of sport players that have their stats laid out as a radar chart. One might be average on defense, but a world class striker. Is he better than a world class defender but average striker? And even that is a convenient and lossy approximation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart

Carmack and Bellard are both wizards, and trying to rank them is a fool's errand. Let's appreciate them both!

> There’s few things I find more pathetic than trying really hard to show who’s best and ranking things that have no business being ranked.

This seems like a strangely harsh response considering the person you're responding to is just restating the assertion that Carmack made in his tweet.

Carmack it's a better engineer, but Bellard it's a better thinker and innovator. To each its own.