News: 0180948532

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Tony Hoare, Turing Award-Winning Computer Scientist Behind QuickSort, Dies At 92 (i-programmer.info)

(Tuesday March 10, 2026 @11:30PM (BeauHD) from the rest-in-peace dept.)


[1]Tony Hoare , the Turing Award-winning pioneer who created the [2]Quicksort algorithm, developed [3]Hoare logic , and advanced theories of concurrency and structured programming, has died at age 92.

News of his passing was shared today in a [4]blog post . The site I Programmer also [5]commemorated Hoare in a post highlighting his contributions to computer science and the lasting impact of his work. Personal accounts have been shared on [6]Hacker News and [7]Reddit .

Many Slashdotters may know Hoare for his aphorism regarding software design: "There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."



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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic

[4] https://lefenetrou.blogspot.com/2026/03/in-memoriam-tony-hoare.html

[5] https://www.i-programmer.info/news/82-heritage/18718-commemorating-tony-hoare-inventor-of-quicksort.html

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47316880

[7] https://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/1rq6zl4/rip_tony_hoare_1934_2026/


I remember learning quicksort in college (Score:3)

by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

And I understood how it worked and why it worked and that it worked but what I didn't understand is how somebody could think that would work in the first place. The same thing goes for parity archives.

And I've heard that if you have a background in mathematics that it all kind of makes sense and follows from that however that just kicks the can down the road to whoever first figured out those mathematical concepts.

Re:I remember learning quicksort in college (Score:4, Informative)

by sg_oneill ( 159032 )

I remember proving to myself that it works as well as he did by sorting a deck of cards using the method. I was shocked at how quickly it worked. I rarely ever have to roll my own sort, the library ones work better than good, but when I do, its always a quicksort, just because its one I know works and works well. Its not the fastest, but it IS fast.

Re: (Score:3)

by laktech ( 998064 )

What I find more incredible is, the class of people there come up with these incredible innovations... what are they working on today?

Re: (Score:3)

by PPH ( 736903 )

> And I've heard that if you have a background in mathematics that it all kind of makes sense

Which is a good argument for getting a well rounded education. The software is only tool to implement an algorithm and solve a problem. One has to understand the problem domain to begin with.

This will be LLMs Achilles Heel. It doesn't really 'understand' anything.

Re: (Score:2)

by OrangeTide ( 124937 )

> And I've heard that if you have a background in mathematics that it all kind of makes sense and follows from that however that just kicks the can down the road to whoever first figured out those mathematical concepts.

I'm not saying it was the aliens... But it was the aliens.

Just as well (Score:1)

by Locke2005 ( 849178 )

I heard his wife was a Hoare anyway...

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