I didn't say that you had to achieve massive wealth or fame. I said being that "idolizing someone for writing great code" isn't a worthwhile goal. Dennis Ritchie created two important products that are still used today: C and Unix. I think you'd find plenty of people would have a lot of bad things to say about C, for example, but it did solve a problem and help move the world forward.

By the way, why wouldn't you mention Bertrand Meyer or Niklaus Wirth?