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Tony Hoare has died (lefenetrou.blogspot.com)
dang 23 days 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.)

EdNutting 23 days ago [-]
This post appears to have been hidden from the front page of HN?
dang 23 days ago [-]
Yes, it was submitted before the news had been confirmed. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327440.
zombot 23 days ago [-]
No black band at the op of HN? Is that only for rich people?
dang 23 days 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.
23 days ago [-]
butterisgood 23 days ago [-]
Wikipedia seems to say he passed yesterday.
wging 23 days ago [-]
But there are no citations on any of the edits claiming this, and there were two incompatible dates claimed (March 5, March 8).
hinkley 23 days ago [-]
At this exact moment it looks like those edits may have been reverted.
pyuser583 22 days ago [-]
Even now his Oxford bio lists him as alive, by his Royal Society bio lists him as deceased.
arn3n 24 days ago [-]
Pardon if I’m dumb/missed something: Is Tony Hoare dead? I see no news anywhere.
Jtsummers 24 days 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.
intuitionist 23 days ago [-]
Sadly it seems to be true. Heard it late last week from a coworker in a position to know.
tibbar 24 days ago [-]
That is the claim of the post. I also don't see confirmation elsewhere
nextos 24 days 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.

jlhawn 23 days 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...
23 days ago [-]
nextos 23 days ago [-]
It was edited again a few minutes ago and now displays Sunday, March 8th as his date of death.
codethief 23 days ago [-]
And it's gone again!
hinkley 23 days ago [-]
His Wikipedia page is still worded in the present tense. People tend to be johnny on the spot about that so maybe not?
csb6 24 days ago [-]
The blog author says that Jonathan Bowen informed them, so it is possible it hasn't been officially announced.
spooneybarger 23 days ago [-]
Yes. He died last week.
rvz 23 days ago [-]
RIP Tony Hoare.

Legendary Turing Award Winner.

behehebd 23 days ago [-]
Any link to information?
spooneybarger 23 days ago [-]
Came through personal contact who is close to the family.
pyuser583 23 days 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.
reenorap 23 days ago [-]
Once verified, I definitely think the creator of Quicksort deserves a black bar.
hinkley 23 days 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.
jacquesm 23 days ago [-]
It goes a lot further than Quicksort.
jonstewart 23 days ago [-]
Yes, make it black.
penguin_booze 23 days 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

bitwize 23 days ago [-]
Time for a black band.
23 days ago [-]
23 days ago [-]
hinkley 23 days ago [-]
@dang is there such a thing as a double black bar? Because we need one for Tony.
toomuchtodo 23 days ago [-]
Tags do nothing, email the mods if desired. Bottom bar has deets (“contact”).
godd2 23 days ago [-]
What is a black bar?
john_strinlai 23 days 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
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