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Niklaus Wirth has died

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Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#41

Post by Qem »

kragen wrote: post #2

begin this is terrible news; is there a better source than twitter (edit: https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2024/016856.html thanks to johndoe0815); wirth was the greatest remaining apostle of simplicity, correctness, and software built for humans to understand; now only hoare and moore remain, and moore seems to have given the reins at greenarrays to a younger generation; young people may not be aware of th…

> wirth was the greatest remaining apostle of simplicity, correctness, and software built for humans to understand; now only hoare and moore remain

Also Alan Kay still with us.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#42

Post by baus »

Modula-2 had a huge influence on my early understanding of Software Engineering and Computer Science. I feel it is one of his under-valued contributions. RIP Niklaus. One of the great ones.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#43

Post by parshua »

I started my first company based on Delphi, which itself was based on Turbo Pascal. Wirth was a great inspiration, and his passing is no small loss. May his work keep inspiring new programmers for generations to come.

One of his quotes: "Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value."

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#44

Post by the_arun »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #19

Besides his contribution to language design, he authored one of the best puns ever. His last name is properly pronounced something like "Virt" but in the US everyone calls him by "Worth". That led him to quip, "In Europe I'm called by name, but in the US I'm called by value."

Looks like he had a good sense of humor too.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#45

Post by Qem »

RIP Mr. Wirth. The first programming language I ever learnt was Pascal, that brings me fond memories. A big loss for the computer science community.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#46

Post by kloch »

khazhoux wrote: post #13

Wirth was the chief designer of the programming languages Euler (1965), PL360 (1966), ALGOL W (1966), Pascal (1970), Modula (1975), Modula-2 (1978), Oberon (1987), Oberon-2 (1991), and Oberon-07 (2007). He was also a major part of the design and implementation team for the operating systems Medos-2 (1983, for the Lilith workstation), and Oberon (1987, for the Ceres workstation), and for the Lola (1995) digital hardwa…

Pascal was the second language I learned after Fortran. I didn't particularly like Fortran but Pascal really hit home and motivated me to learn C.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#47

Post by erikpukinskis »

kleiba wrote: post #16

@HN: Black banner, please?

Not trying to be crude, but is someone passing away after a long, rich life of 89 years something to mourn? Isn’t that kind of the best case scenario?

For me something like a black banner signifies a tragedy, not merely a death. A bunch of children being shot, a war, a disease ravaging a country, etc.

I’m curious to learn others’ perspectives however.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#48

Post by nvrmnd »

kleiba wrote: post #16

@HN: Black banner, please?

Some people say that it doesn't matter if someone dies at age 89 -- after they have lived a full life and contributed all they had to give -- it's still just as sad and shocking.

Personally, I don't agree, to me it's just not as sad or shocking. People don't live forever and Wirth's life was as successful and complete as possible. It's not a "black day" where society truly lost someone before they fulfilled their potential.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#49

Post by yawaramin »

kragen wrote: post #2

begin this is terrible news; is there a better source than twitter (edit: https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2024/016856.html thanks to johndoe0815); wirth was the greatest remaining apostle of simplicity, correctness, and software built for humans to understand; now only hoare and moore remain, and moore seems to have given the reins at greenarrays to a younger generation; young people may not be aware of th…

Martin Odersky, creator of the Scala language and Wirth's student, also seems to believe it: https://twitter.com/odersky/status/1742618391553171866
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