October 24, 2011

John McCarthy, RIP

Updated: There's a fine obituary in the NYT tonight.

The Stanford computer scientist was 84. Some years ago, Paul Graham wrote an essay entitled Some Heroes:
John McCarthy 
John McCarthy invented [the programming language] Lisp, the field of (or at least the term) artificial intelligence, and was an early member of both of the top two computer science departments, MIT and Stanford. No one would dispute that he's one of the greats, but he's an especial hero to me because of Lisp. 
It's hard for us now to understand what a conceptual leap that was at the time. Paradoxically, one of the reasons his achievement is hard to appreciate is that it was so successful. 
Practically every programming language invented in the last 20 years includes ideas from Lisp, and each year the median language gets more Lisplike. 
In 1958 these ideas were anything but obvious. In 1958 there seem to have been two ways of thinking about programming. Some people thought of it as math, and proved things about Turing Machines. Others thought of it as a way to get things done, and designed languages all too influenced by the technology of the day. McCarthy alone bridged the gap. He designed a language that was math. But designed is not really the word; discovered is more like it.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Related. The true face of merit (posted on Lubos Motl's blog):

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-TOOSL7aZXgg/TqWpnu-m5TI/AAAAAAAAE5g/pBmWVJ8MhQY/TASI99-group.jpg

Anonymous said...

Should have read:

(John(McCarthy(RIP)))

Anonymous said...

Lisp is a cool language and all, but lispers, while smart, are often too unsocial and undisciplined to develop large-scale applications or frameworks to completion.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SocialProblemsOfLisp

as said...

Dennis Ritchie also died recently.

Morning on the Shore said...

Probably not the time but, as far as the (humorously perceived) superiority of Lisp:

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/john-mccarthy-programming-completely-wrong.jpg

If nothing else it's a good picture.

Truth said...

Hey, an Irishman significant in the computer field? You know he was old, that's kind of like a white cornerback!

Anonymous said...

Amy Chupra?

neil craig said...

I don't know anything about his computer/artificial intelibence stuff but when jerry Pournelle once referred to him as one of the most inteligent people in the orld I checked out his political blogging and have repeatedly found them invaluable.

The definitive article on why the anti-vuclear scares are false
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

What I advocate for the 21st century http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/future/advocate.html

WHAT INNOVATIONS WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE? http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/future/difference.html

TECHNOLOGY AND THE POSITION OF WOMEN http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/future/women.html

List of Sustainability Web Pages http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/contents.html

THE SAYINGS OF JOHN MCCARTHY http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/sayings.html

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/explosions.html

WHAT FUTURES SHALL WE MAKE? http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/future/index.html

and others linked.

Anonymous said...

Selfish gene theory and the Catholic Church. When most Catholics were white European reactionaries, Vatican appealed to European conservatives. Now that church membership/attendance is way down, Catholic Church reaches out to non-whites all over the world to remain relevant and in power.

Self-gene theory and the Chinese Communist Party. When communism was useful to consolidate power all over China, it was very socialist. But now that it has a better chance staying in power through economic growth, it is largely pro-capitalist.

Anonymous said...

McCarthy had a Lithuanian Jewish mother and an Irish immigrant father.

Anonymous said...

I think 'hero' should mean someone who dramatically risks his own life(or well-being)to save others. Firemen can be heroes.

John McCarthy was a visionary, an innovator, a revolutionary, a genius, wizard, etc. But not a hero. One doesn't have to be a hero to be great and not all kinds of greatness are heroic. He might even count as a prophet though prophets tend to be generalists than specialists.

Hero is also not to be confused with martyr. Hero may die trying to save others. Martyr can simply be killed for his beliefs or convictions.
Hero is a person of action. Martyr is often a pacifistic saint, which is different from a hero.

A hero embraces violence to save others.
A saint forsakes violence to die with a pure heart for what is right.
In the movie THE MISSION, Deniro dies a hero's death(by trying to save the natives). Irons dies a saint-martyr's death(by leading the natives to a holy death).

Anonymous said...

Hero is also different from champion.
Hero faces danger for the good of others.
Champion faces danger for his own glory.

Anonymous said...

"Hero faces danger for the good of others.
Champion faces danger for his own glory."

So a champion champions himself?

Thankfully, we have dictionaries to refute this nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Lisp was different for 1958, but so was the integrated circuit, the oxygen furnace, fiberoptic cable, etc. The "game-changing" tech landmarks of the 20th century were by and large pre-1960, since it was decided to concentrate on social engineering after. The growing consensus in the last 2 years seems to be: start something like WWII again so as to reclaim that edenic period & balance the books

Anonymous said...

I just browsed through the collected sayings of John McCarthy to which Neil Craig linked and they are pithy and it seems that he really had a serious animosity toward ideology, innumeracy and ignorance of unintended consequences.


Steve would like this one...

"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense." - jmc 1970s or 1980s

Duncan said...

Of that earlier group of computer science pioneers I often think of Brian Kernighan (of course of Kernighan and Ritchie fame). When you read through the biographies of these men what is striking is how they had theoretically rich as well as pragmatic careers. That seems a rarity today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan

Truth said...

"McCarthy had a Lithuanian Jewish mother and an Irish immigrant father."

Aaaaah-Haaaaaah!

(Svigor and Whuskey just smiled for different reasons.)

Anonymous said...

The growing consensus in the last 2 years seems to be: start something like WWII again so as to reclaim that edenic period & balance the books

Bring back pre-Dewey anti-social elitist education!

AllanF said...

the NYT: "Rather, he predicted, wrongly, that in the future everyone would have a relatively simple and inexpensive computer terminal in the home linked to a shared, centralized mainframe and use it as an electronic portal to the worlds of commerce and news and entertainment media."

Um, did he put a date on that prediction, because the obituary writer sounds a little too sure of himself if you ask me.

AllanF said...

Dennis Ritchie also died recently

Yes, and McCarthy makes three.

Anonymous said...

Kael Kael Kael. Enough already!!

Fred said...

"McCarthy had a Lithuanian Jewish mother and an Irish immigrant father."

Aaaaah-Haaaaaah!"


But wait, it gets better:

Both parents were members of the Communist Party.

And,

At Princeton, in 1949, he briefly joined the local Communist Party cell, which had two other members: a cleaning woman and a gardener, he told an interviewer. But he quit the party shortly afterward.

G Joubert said...

The "game-changing" tech landmarks of the 20th century were by and large pre-1960, since it was decided to concentrate on social engineering after.

Yeah, you're right, but that's not entirely a bad thing. The post-1960 "social engineering" you deride includes the advances in marketing, which put a veritable cornucopia of goods, services, and cutting edge wonderment into the hands and homes of the masses.

Dennis Dale said...

"Rather, he predicted, wrongly, that in the future everyone would have a relatively simple and inexpensive computer terminal in the home linked to a shared, centralized mainframe and use it as an electronic portal to the worlds of commerce and news and entertainment media."

Weren't Larry Ellison and others
promoting this model as the anti-Microsoft in the Nineties?

Dennis Dale said...

I think 'hero' should mean someone who dramatically risks his own life(or well-being)to save others. Firemen can be heroes.

No. You're only halfway there. We must refer to a sage:

"A hero kills people, people that wish him harm. A hero is part human and part supernatural. A hero is born out of a childhood trauma, or out of a disaster, that must be avenged".

Also acceptable:

a large sandwich on a long crusty roll that is split lengthwise and filled with meats and cheese (and tomato and onion and lettuce and condiments); also known as a grinder or submarine.

By the way, what would constitute the undramatic risking of one's life? Cause if it's me that's risking his life I'm going to call that high drama indeed.
Or do you mean a hero should declare, a la Jon Lovitz' thespian, his actions: "Heroism!"?

Aaron in Israel said...

I was never interested in AI, but Lisp was love at first sight. I remember the first time I programmed in Lisp. It was like, "Wow, I remember now, programming can be fun!"

McCarthy was a great computer scientist, but I remember he once posted to comp.emacs.xemacs for help with a trivial XEmacs Lisp problem in his .emacs file. I was honored to answer the trivial XEmacs Lisp question for the inventor of Lisp. Another poster who didn't recognize McCarthy's name flamed him for asking such an elementary question.

I used to hang out on a Usenet group (unrelated to computers) that McCarthy also frequented. Once the topic of discussion was Steve Sailer. McCarthy went out of his way to post that he was a big fan of Sailer's.

Paul Graham has some interesting historical essays on his site about McCarthy and his invention of Lisp.

RIP, jmc.

NOTA said...

Paul Graham's essay includes a description of what he means by calling various people, including McCarthy, a hero: never dumbing down your ideas or designs, remaining true to your own vision and intellect. It's a very Randian notion of hero, and much more Hank Rearden than Ragnar Daneskjold. He's not talking about physical courage, he's talking about integrity.

Anonymous said...

The post-1960 "social engineering" you deride includes the advances in marketing, which put a veritable cornucopia of goods, services, and cutting edge wonderment into the hands and homes of the masses.

Speaking of wonderment... I honestly don't get this commenter's point. Prior to 1960, were any important consumer goods held back for lack of marketing? Cars, radio, TVs, household appliances come to mind. One can argue that the 50 years before 1960 saw more transformative consumer goods enter the American home than the 50 years since.

Cennbeorc

Anonymous said...

he predicted, wrongly, that in the future everyone would have a relatively simple and inexpensive computer terminal in the home linked to a shared, centralized mainframe and use it as an electronic portal to the worlds of commerce and news and entertainment media.



I suppose the "mainframe" part was wrong, but the basic concept is right. All of us are sitting at home using " a relatively simple and inexpensive computer terminal" and connecting to "a shared, centralized" server farm which hosts Google blogger.