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Bill Atkinson has died

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Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#91

Post by dan-robertson »

garciasn wrote: post #30
LorenDB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines of code story is a timeless classic.

Score code on line count and runtime golf. Shorter, faster, and fastest time to completion is best. Code that’s 4K and took slightly less time to write but runs slightly faster than code that’s 400 bytes that took another 30m to write still doesn’t get the best score.

I kind think metrics are not the answer and instead one needs taste. Obviously performance is multidimensional both in what one measures (latency vs throughput) and as a function of the input. The solution you imagine that is slightly faster in the test could avoid (or introduce) different worst-case or asymptotic behaviour, for example.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#93

Post by zahlman »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #72

For anyone (like me) wondering who this guy was, he was a prominent UI guy at Apple back in the day. According to Wikipedia he created the menu bar, QuickDraw, and HyperCard. For whomever submits stories like this, please say who the person was. Very few people are so famous that everyone in tech knows who they were, and Mr. Atkinson was not one of them. I've heard of his accomplishments, but never the man himself.

Several previous top-level comments address Atkinson's accomplishments, but I agree with you in principle.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#94

Post by viccis »

gxs wrote: post #79
JKCalhoun wrote: post #51

When I was on the ColorSync team at Apple we, the engineers, got an invite to his place-in-the-woods one day. I knew who he was at the time, but for some reason I felt I was more or less beholden to conversing only about color-related issues and how they applied to a computer workflow. Having retired, I have been kicking myself for some time not just chatting with him about ... whatever. He was at the time I met him…

> I have to say that I mused at the time about a wealthy, retired, engineer who throws money at high end photo gear and suddenly thinks they're a photographer I think this says more about you than it does about him

It's true though. This effect is what keeps companies like PRS in business.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#95

Post by dan-robertson »

matthewn wrote: post #13

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not ju…

Not sure that sculpting clay is the best analogy. Lots of sculpting is hard, as is turning clay, especially if you want to successfully fire the result. Maybe it is an accurate analogy, but people may understand the difficulty differently.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#97

Post by pcdoodle »

Oh man, he's a legend. My condolences to any family members passing by in remembrance. My highest respect goes to those with the tenacity and character required to force a good idea into existence. Bill inspired many people. While reading about him in "Revolution in the Valley", it felt like it recalibrated my own personal compass and gave me a sense of purpose in my own endeavors.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#98

Post by [deleted] »

kadushka wrote: post #52
matthewn wrote: post #13

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not ju…

inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove LLMs inspired vibe coding - that’s our timeline.

[deleted]

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#99

Post by garciasn »

dan-robertson wrote: post #91
garciasn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Score code on line count and runtime golf. Shorter, faster, and fastest time to completion is best. Code that’s 4K and took slightly less time to write but runs slightly faster than code that’s 400 bytes that took another 30m to write still doesn’t get the best score.

I kind think metrics are not the answer and instead one needs taste. Obviously performance is multidimensional both in what one measures (latency vs throughput) and as a function of the input. The solution you imagine that is slightly faster in the test could avoid (or introduce) different worst-case or asymptotic behaviour, for example.

I argue we shouldn’t be doing this at all; but, if we have to do to whatever insanely arbitrary metric a project/product/eng leader wants, this is probably a better metric than code length.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#100

Post by mixmastamyk »

melling wrote: post #57
dakiol wrote: post #15

RIP. It still suprises me that people with resources die so early (he died at 74).

Pancreatic cancer. Still quite deadly. It has been 17 years since Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo?si=TlgWzgQ7bD3Usvu3

Steve also, correct? Wonder if it has anything to do with the chemical dumping in silicon valley.
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