+ - John McCarthy, Pioneer of AI, Dies 1
Submitted
by
Genrou
Genrou writes "It is a sad month for computer sciences in the world. After Jobs and Ritchie, yesterday, October 23rd, John McCarthy died. He was a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence and creator of the LISP language."
Let's not let his work be lost (Score:1)
A month of profound losses, indeed.
The contributions of Steve Jobs are well known, even by people who are not interested in computers.
Dennis Richie's work is well known within the computer industry, and Slashdot is an example of how pervasively influential C and Unix became.
John McCarthy's contributions might not be as well known; and that would be a shame.
In 1961, McCarthy suggested that computing could become a reliable, affordable utility service, like the supplies of water or electricity. Within a few