[HN Gopher] Tony Hoare answers questions [video]
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Tony Hoare answers questions [video]
Author : timthorn
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-07-05 16:20 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newton.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newton.ac.uk)
| tosh wrote:
| afaiu core.async in Clojure and channels in Go are inspired by
| Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP)
|
| https://swannodette.github.io/2013/07/12/communicating-seque...
|
| https://clojure.org/news/2013/06/28/clojure-clore-async-chan...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicating_sequential_proce...
| jgrahamc wrote:
| When I applied to do my DPhil at Oxford, Tony Hoare was the
| Professor of Computing and interviewed me. The hardest question
| he asked me was... "Where else did you apply to do research?" and
| I replied "Nowhere".
|
| I never found out if that was a good response or not.
| RobRivera wrote:
| It depends - but most people feel warm and fuzzy committing
| funds to a candidate if they know that they 'got nowhere else
| to go'
| peteretep wrote:
| I was excited to hear I was being awarded the "CAR Hoare" prize
| from the same institution, only to find out it was a measly
| PS200, if we're doing humble brags
| [deleted]
| kenjackson wrote:
| What were his easy questions?
| nextos wrote:
| But you got in!
| julian55 wrote:
| He interviewed me when I applied in the 1980s. He asked whether
| I what I thought of Ada which was new at the time. I was quite
| positive about it which was probably the wrong answer, I didn't
| get in.
| fredley wrote:
| For those who may not know, Tony Hoare invented Quicksort and the
| concept of null in computing, amongst many other fundamental
| things.
| shadowlight wrote:
| Null is garbage and responsible for billions of dollars worth
| of net loss. I wouldn't list null as one of his achievements.
| shadowlight wrote:
| For people voting me down who don't know any better. Tony
| agrees with me and even himself calls it a great mistake:
|
| Speaking at a software conference in 2009, Tony Hoare
| apologized for inventing the null reference:
|
| "I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of
| the null reference in 1965. At that time, I was designing the
| first comprehensive type system for references in an object
| oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all
| use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking
| performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn't
| resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply
| because it was so easy to implement. This has led to
| innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes,
| which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and
| damage in the last forty years."
| H8crilA wrote:
| It's not the first time I'm seeing a q&a with Hoare. Every time
| someone asks "but how exactly did you figure out quicksort?".
| He must have heard that a hundred times by now. He should come
| up with a fake but catchy story, like the Newton gravity apple
| :)
| cbsmith wrote:
| Honestly, quicksort seems like a really intuitive way to do
| sorting, so much so that when I was in school I had to keep
| remembering that _merge_ sort was the "trickier" way (to
| me).
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Also Hoare logic.
| xfer wrote:
| Also CSP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicating_sequent
| ial_proce...
| lou1306 wrote:
| Also, monitors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_%28sy
| nchronization%29?...
| open-source-ux wrote:
| A collection of his essays was published in book form in 1989
| and is freely available to download:
|
| _Essays in computing science_ (1989):
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/63445
|
| Essays discuss: Algol, Pascal, programming language design,
| mathematics in computing, data structures and much more.
| risk wrote:
| I love the concept of null in computing so much and for golang
| channels and the most practical concurrent programming paradigm
| on earth there is CSP. He is a GOAT of this domain.
| cbsmith wrote:
| Null is a pox on all our houses, but nonetheless Hoare is
| awesome.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| What's a GOAT?
| bb1234 wrote:
| Greatest Of All Time
| the_benno wrote:
| adding some context: used most often in discussion of
| sports in my experience, e.g. Michael Jordan in Basketball,
| Wayne Gretzky in Hockey, Babe Ruth in Baseball, etc.
| Carries connotations not only of being one of the best to
| ever do it, but also a mythos and aura that
| influenced/continues to influence others.
| [deleted]
| jyriand wrote:
| GOAT as the OG of his field
| jchallis wrote:
| GOAT Of All Time
|
| We need something suitably recursive for Hoare.
| mikequinlan wrote:
| Greatest Of All Time
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