Tony Hoare and His Imprint on Computer Science | Hacker News Reader

Tony Hoare and His Imprint on Computer Science

cacm.acm.org

68 pointsmatt_d4 comments

The detail about Hoare sitting in the front row at conferences taking notes on specialized topics (after retiring from Oxford, after a Turing Award, after decades of foundational work) is the part of this piece that will stick with me. There's a certain kind of senior figure who stops learning once they reach eminence. Hoare clearly wasn't that. Meyer's phrase "a combination of pride and humility" nails it.

"Once you stop learning, you start dying." Don't know if that quote is actually by Einstein or just attributed to him, but it rings true for me.

Back when I studied philosophy at university, the oldest person in my class was in his seventies and just took random courses in fields that interested him since his retirement 10+ years previously.

I like to think that I'd do something similar, as long as I'd have the energy.

I think the fact that he wasn't content with learning enough is likely why he did so much amazing stuff. A lot of people would have been content enough to have invented Quicksort, but Hoare went on to make CSP, Hoare Logic, UTP, and a million other amazing things.

I like to think I'm the same way; I haven't won a Turing award yet, and I don't even have a PhD, but I've always been someone who is sort of obsessed with learning new things about software and math. It's basically been the only edge I've had over most of my peers: my willingness to learn new things to try and keep up with trends. Peoples' unwillingness to learn new things has been highlighted recently with AI, but tech has famously always progressed pretty quickly and I've always been terrified of being left behind.

I've grown to really respect lifelong learners. It's very easy (and tempting!) to stop learning after university, but I think it's worth it to never feel like you've learned "enough". My dad is looking to retire soonish, and he's considering re-enrolling in University to get a masters in theoretical physics since he always felt he should have learned that better. I hope I'm the same way when I'm his age.

Null references, CSP, Quicksort. One person responsible for that much of how we think about computing is rare. The null reference apology alone earned him a permanent place in the conversation.

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