Guy Steele

Guy Lewis Steele, Jr.

Renowned wizard, inventor (with GeraldSussman) of the SchemeLanguage, editor of the original HackersDictionary (see JargonFile), designer of the Emacs keyset, first person to port TeX, author of CommonLispTheLanguage and co-author of the JavaLanguageSpecification, and other things too. Works at SunMicrosystems.

Some generally enjoyable links:

• The (original) Hacker's Dictionary: http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html
• Growing a Language from OOPSLA '98, see GrowingaLanguage
• The "Lambda Papers", http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html ; see LambdaTheUltimate
• Programming humour by TheGreatQuux:
  • Verse (including much ComputerFilk) at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/humor/fionavar/quux_poem
    • includes "The HACTRN", also at http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00117.html
  • Another poem: "TELNET Song": http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1419.html . This made it into the CommunicationsOfTheAssociationForComputingMachinery.
  • The Crunchly cartoons: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/lexicon.html
  • (TheGreatQuux's output was mostly inspired by the ArtificialIntelligence/LispLanguage hacking scene of the 70s and early 80s. What could capture the distinctive spirit of the 70s more perfectly than "BBN Superlisp" to the tune of JesusChristSuperstar? :) )

I'm aware of the above, but how is he a polymath? (I'm not arguing, I'm just curious; he's in the polymath list on SoftwareExpertsIpersonallyRespect) Well, there is TheGreatQuux's oeuvre. I don't think GuySteele would claim to be a "serious" humorist or writer though.

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CategoryAuthor, SoftwareGeniuses