Tony Hoare has died

Posted by nextos 22 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by dang 1 hour ago

I've merged the comments into this thread now: Tony Hoare has died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324054.

Normally we'd try to re-up the earliest submission of a story, but in this case the article had little information, while the other post is nicely personal and detailed. I've left below the comments which were (understandably) debating whether the news was true or not.

(Just to be clear: this is not a criticism! It's an important story, nextos is a fine contributor, and the submission was entirely understandable.)

Comment by EdNutting 20 hours ago

This post appears to have been hidden from the front page of HN?

Comment by dang 1 hour ago

Yes, it was submitted before the news had been confirmed. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327440.

Comment by butterisgood 21 hours ago

Wikipedia seems to say he passed yesterday.

Comment by wging 21 hours ago

But there are no citations on any of the edits claiming this, and there were two incompatible dates claimed (March 5, March 8).

Comment by hinkley 21 hours ago

At this exact moment it looks like those edits may have been reverted.

Comment by zombot 14 hours ago

No black band at the op of HN? Is that only for rich people?

Comment by dang 1 hour ago

I hope you've noticed which story has been at the top of HN all day today, and how lovely the comments in it are.

Comment by 7 hours ago

Comment by arn3n 21 hours ago

Pardon if I’m dumb/missed something: Is Tony Hoare dead? I see no news anywhere.

Comment by Jtsummers 21 hours ago

I can't find any news either, but that is the claim of this submission.

  > Jonathan Bowen informed me of Tony Hoare's death on Thursday, March 5th. (translated from French)
The main reason to find it surprising is that it's now 4 days since then, I'd have expected something to have been published besides this page.

Comment by intuitionist 20 hours ago

Sadly it seems to be true. Heard it late last week from a coworker in a position to know.

Comment by tibbar 21 hours ago

That is the claim of the post. I also don't see confirmation elsewhere

Comment by nextos 21 hours ago

There is very little information around, this is the most authoritative post I could find. There are some comments on X as well.

According to this blogpost, he sadly passed away last Thursday, March 5th.

Comment by jlhawn 21 hours ago

There were a few recent edits about this on Tony Hoar's Wikipedia page which were reverted because there was no substantial evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tony_Hoare&action...

Comment by 20 hours ago

Comment by nextos 21 hours ago

It was edited again a few minutes ago and now displays Sunday, March 8th as his date of death.

Comment by codethief 21 hours ago

And it's gone again!

Comment by hinkley 21 hours ago

His Wikipedia page is still worded in the present tense. People tend to be johnny on the spot about that so maybe not?

Comment by csb6 21 hours ago

The blog author says that Jonathan Bowen informed them, so it is possible it hasn't been officially announced.

Comment by spooneybarger 21 hours ago

Yes. He died last week.

Comment by behehebd 21 hours ago

Any link to information?

Comment by spooneybarger 21 hours ago

Came through personal contact who is close to the family.

Comment by rvz 21 hours ago

RIP Tony Hoare.

Legendary Turing Award Winner.

Comment by penguin_booze 12 hours ago

I found this link elsewhere. But then I went to his wikipedia page; it doesn't seem to have any mention of date of demise.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

Comment by pyuser583 21 hours ago

Wikipedia is reporting him as deceased, but there’s a bit of an editing war going on. No source is cited for his death, and and it’s going back and forth.

Comment by reenorap 21 hours ago

Once verified, I definitely think the creator of Quicksort deserves a black bar.

Comment by hinkley 21 hours ago

Tony Hoare documented almost every form of concurrency primitive that we have in modern software. Pretty much everything prior to Rust's ownership semantics was written down in some form or under another name by Tony in the early 1970's.

Comment by jacquesm 20 hours ago

It goes a lot further than Quicksort.

Comment by jonstewart 21 hours ago

Yes, make it black.

Comment by 20 hours ago

Comment by bitwize 21 hours ago

Time for a black band.

Comment by 21 hours ago

Comment by hinkley 21 hours ago

@dang is there such a thing as a double black bar? Because we need one for Tony.

Comment by toomuchtodo 21 hours ago

Tags do nothing, email the mods if desired. Bottom bar has deets (“contact”).

Comment by godd2 20 hours ago

What is a black bar?

Comment by john_strinlai 20 hours ago

when a significant figure in the tech/science community dies, hn will sometimes place a thin black bar at the top of the page in memoriam