Free Republic

Pascal, the programming language he created in the early days of personal computing, offered a simpler alternative to other languages in use at the time.Dr. Wirth died of heart failure on Jan. 1, 2024 at his home in Zurich, his daughter Tina Wirth said. He was 89. He wasn’t nearly as well known as programmers such as Steve Wozniak, who founded Apple with Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates, who founded Microsoft with Paul Allen. But to legions of computer scientists Dr. Wirth was one of the most influential and inspiring scientists of the early computer age. The Association for Computing...

The two dozen tech geniuses who endorsed Joe Biden in a recent New York Times letter showed an obliviousness all too typical of the industry. Biden and running mate Kamala Harris “listen to experts before setting public policy,” they claim — which evidently means they’ll favor the tech industry’s preferences when it comes to immigration policy. The 24 winners of the Turing Award, aka the Nobel Prize of programming, don’t run the Big Tech companies. But they clearly join in the industry’s upset over H-1B visas, which normally allow for the recruitment of immigrants with specialized skills — until President...

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a prize-winning computer scientist who failed to return from a quick trip to the Farallon Islands on Sunday. Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Amy Marrs, said Jim Gray, 63, was reported missing by his wife at 8:35 p.m. A ten-year veteran of Microsoft and winner of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award, Gray is a technical fellow whose work focuses on databases and transaction processing systems. Gray set out from San Francisco alone on Sunday morning in his 40-foot sailboat named ``Tenacious.'' The conditions were good, and Gray was expected back Sunday evening. Gray's wife...