Tony Hoare (1934-2026)

47 points by hwayne 4 hours ago on lobsters | 5 comments

cpurdy | 3 hours ago

He had a great mind, and was still quite active (I last ran into him at a conference we were speaking at a few years ago.) I never asked how old he was, but he was already out in the world, famous for having done some great things, back before I was born -- and I guess I'm getting old at this point.

A life worth celebrating. And (other than those nulls 😂) a good example for all of us.

jmiven | 4 hours ago

Without being insensitive, do we have reasons to believe that Jim Miles and Lance Fortnow know that for a fact?

The rumour has been around for almost 24 hours, without much actual sources. Wikipedia has been having an editing war about it. A first link (another blog post, written by a French researcher) has already been deleted by pushcx, but this one isn't much better as far as sources go.

I still haven't found anything about it on BBC's website, for example, which is surprising.

[OP] hwayne | 4 hours ago

Jim Miles says that he knew Tony Hoare personally and also that he was "invited to remember the Tony that I knew", so he probably has firsthand confirmation that Hoare has died.

The preface of the book Theories of Programming: The Life and Works of Tony Hoare has a summary of his career. His Turing Award page has a biography, interviews, and a link to his award lecture which was largely reminiscences and lessons from the first half of his career.

patrickthomson | 43 minutes ago

I got to meet Sir Tony when I was a freshman in college. He came to my school to talk about his history with programming, and where he anticipated the industry going. I was selected to have dinner with him, and he was unfailingly polite and generous with his thoughts, even when faced with a teenager who didn’t know much about anything (though I sure thought I did). I am grateful to him.