Niklaus Wirth has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#71

Post by dvaun » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:08 PM UTC

blast wrote: post #65

parshua wrote: post #43

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, bu…

Wirth must have adopted the quote (how could he not), but it actually goes back to a clever line by someone introducing him at a conference. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38858993

What conference was it? Edit: Nvm, saw your other comment[0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38858993

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#72

Post by throw_m239339 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:09 PM UTC

RIP, a great loss for computer science.

Some people here are recommending greats books he wrote, definitely worth reading.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#73

Post by nerpderp82 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:11 PM UTC

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…

As far as I know, Henry Baker is still with us. I had a dream where I interviewed Wirth for like 20 hrs so we could clone him with an LLM. We need to grab as much video interviews from folks as possible.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#74

Post by HumblyTossed » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

A great loss. I cherish my copy of "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs". I re-read it every couple of years.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#75

Post by bhaak » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

I'm a former student of his. He was one of the people that made me from a teenager that hacked on his keyboard to get something to run to a seasoned programmer that thinks before he codes.

Even before I met him at the university I was programming in Oberon because there was a big crowd of programmers doing Wirth languages on the Amiga.

He will be missed.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#76

Post by googamooga » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

R.I.P. Niklaus Wirth. Your ideas, languages and designs were the inspiration for several generations of computer scientists and engineers. Your Lilith computer and Modula-2 language kindled a small group of students in Western Siberia’s Akademgorodok to create KRONOS - an original RISC processor-based computer, with it’s own OS and Modula-2 complier, and lots of tools. I was very lucky to join the KRONOS team in 1986 as a 16 yo complete beginner, and this changed my life forever as I become obsessed with programming. Thank you, Niklaus.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#77

Post by madamelic » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:13 PM UTC

Am I understanding correctly that he was the sole maintainer of Algol at the age of 86 years old? Or was it more supervisory / BDFL?

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#78

Post by submeta » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:13 PM UTC

Pascal (Turbo Pascal on a PC) was my second programming language after Assembler and some C (had a copy of Aztec-C compiler) on an Amiga when I was 17ish. Pascal taught me modular programming, breaking down largensystems. I‘d written my own matrix calc library and would program animations for my physics class. And I learned the basic concepts of OO. It was a joy to program in.

RIP Niklaus Wirth.

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#79

Post by nerpderp82 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:14 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #64

Qem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

in the neat/scruffy divide, which goes beyond ai, wirth was the ultimate neat, and kay is almost the ultimate scruffy, though wall outdoes him alan kay is equally great, but on some axes he is the opposite extreme from wirth: an apostle of flexibility, tolerance for error, and trying things to see what works instead of planning everything out perfectly. as sicp says > Pascal is for building pyramids—imposing, breatht…

I had wanted to interview Val Schorre [1], and looked him up on a business trip because I was close. Died 2017, seems like a righteous dude.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/venturacountystar/name/...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/META_II

Re: Niklaus Wirth has died

#80

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 8:14 PM UTC

I hold an old print of his Pascal language report near and dear on my.bookshelf. he bootstrapped oberon with one peer in 1-2 years.

his preference for clarity over notational fancyness inspired so many of us.

the Pascal family of languages are not only syntactically unambiguous to the compiler they are also clear and unambiguous to humans. can. the Carbon successor to c++ strives for the same iirc.