Apparently I missed that Tony Hoare died last week. (EDIT: Apparently two weeks ago, the obituary I saw didn’t have the date of death and was from last week).

I think the first time I met Tony was when we were both on the same panel. The Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG) conference arranged a panel with some people from their community and two relative outsiders. They didn’t tell me until I turned up that there were only two and I was the one without a Turing Award or a knighthood. I was, as you might imagine, somewhat intimidated by this. Tony was amazing. He made me feel like we were just two peers in the subject, each with valid opinions to contribute.

I spent a few years with my office a couple of doors down from his. He was always happy for people to drop in and chat. I went to him with questions periodically and always learned something. Rarely an answer to my question, but always something interesting.

A huge loss to the field.