As Editor-in-Chief of The Computer Journal, I have written a short editorial commemorating the life and work of Professor Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare FRS FREng, universally known as Tony Hoare, who died earlier this year.
I had the privilege of meeting Tony Hoare on a number of occasions at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and was struck by his seriousness without affectation, intellectual generosity, and insistence on clarity. Those qualities are also visible across his written work, which remains unusually readable and relevant decades after publication.
Tony Hoare was one of the defining figures of modern computer science. His work shaped the development of algorithms, programming languages, formal reasoning, concurrency and verification, and continues to influence how we think about the foundations and practice of computing. He received the 1980 ACM A.M. Turing Award for fundamental contributions to the definition and design of programming languages, alongside many other honours including Fellowship of the Royal Society and Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
For The Computer Journal, his passing has particular significance. In 1962, the journal published his paper “Quicksort”, now one of the most recognisable and consequential papers in the history of computing. It remains a striking example of work that is technically deep, conceptually elegant and enduringly useful.
The editorial reflects on Hoare’s wider contributions, including Hoare logic, monitors, Communicating Sequential Processes, and his long-standing commitment to precision, clarity and rigour in programming and software systems. It also notes the journal’s intention to mark his legacy further through a dedicated collection, following the recent Alan Turing Collection.
The full editorial, “In memoriam: C. A. R. Hoare”, is now available in The Computer Journal.
Digital Society & Policy 