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Sir Tony Hoare, would you kindly stand.

Chancellor [or Vice-Chancellor] I have the honour to present for the
degree of XXX, Sir Tony Hoare.

Sir Tony has a colorful background with impressive variety and
achievements.  He was born in Sri Lanka in 1934, studied philosophy,
Latin, and Greek at Oxford University, then studied statistics, served
briefly in the Royal Navy, and then followed graduate studies in
computer translation of human languages at Moscow State University in
Russia.

He has made many brilliant and original inventions and contributions
to computer science, having an enormous impact on research, teaching,
and industry.

Nearly half a century ago, in 1959, while still a young man, he
discovered the Quicksort algorithm.  Today, nearly 50 years later,
Quicksort is still taught to computer science students and is widely
used in computer software.  Although some other algorithms are a bit
better in a theoretical sense, Quicksort is still used because it is
often faster in actual practice and it is simple to implement.
Sorting algorithms are enormously important in computer software.
Keeping lists of information sorted helps speed up finding information
later, and also helps in detecting and removing duplicates which often
arise.  Nearly every computer today will have a number of sorting
algorithms on it, often including one or even several versions of
Quicksort.  For example, my mobile phone [show mobile phone to
audience] comes from Motorola with a full Linux operating system
installed on it, including dozens of so-called "libraries" and
hundreds of programs.  This software collection probably includes
several copies of Sir Tony's Quicksort algorithm.  Considering just
the gadgets carried by the people in this room, there may be a
thousand copies of Quicksort in the room.  Worldwide there are
probably billions of copies of Quicksort.  You can see the importance.

Sir Tony has also been an influential figure in computer programming
language design and implementation.  He has been helped in this by his
great mind and solid foundation in language and philosophy.  In the
1960s (in his twenties and early thirties), he did a lot of work with
the Algol 60 language; this language is still highly regarded today.
He led a team that developed the first commercial Algol 60 compiler; a
compiler is an essential piece of software turning the language that
the human writes into the so-called "machine-language" that the
computer can use.  He suggested improving the Algol language by adding
a so-called "case statement"; this idea has now appeared in many
computer languages.  At this time, he also learned a lot about how
_not_ to design computer languages.  He served on many programming
language design committees: the committee for maintaining and
improving Algol 60 which ultimately led to the disappointing Algol 68,
a committee related to what eventually became the abysmal PL/1
language, and he advised the effort that led to the design of the Ada
language.  But this work was not in vain, because it turned into
advice that he has shared with the entire community over many years.
He is well known for his insightful criticisms of the designs of the
Algol 68, PL/1, and Ada programming languages.  He summarized his
criticisms with his new fable "the emperor's old clothes", which he
presented as part of his award lecture when he received the 1980
Turing award, the highest honor in computer science.  In this fable,
rather than having an emperor wearing imaginary clothes, he described
how the unwise processes of designing programming languages that he
had observed can end up with the situation like having many layers of
clothes without an actual emperor inside them.  The point being that
adding language features (that is, extra layers of clothes) can
destroy the ability to create reliable software (that is, you lose the
emperor).

Having been highly influential in developing programming languages and
in watching their successes and failure, and reaching the wise age of
35, he moved his attention to giving recipes for proving the
correctness of programs and explaining the meaning of programming
languages.  In 1969, he developed Hoare logic, an influential logic
specialized for reasoning about the behavior of programs.  Hoare logic
supports the axiomatic semantics of programming languages, and is
still being developed and extended today.  It has also helped inspire
the widely used Z specification language. Almost 40 years on, his
insights and visions continue to lead the way into understanding and
managing the behavior of computers.

In 1978 he developed CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes), one of
the first so-called process algebras.  CSP was the basis of the
"occam" programming language which was used by the "transputer" of the
(British) INMOS Ltd. company in the 1980s.  Today, 30 years later, CSP
and related process calculi are actively used in understanding and
managing complex computer systems.

One of the shining lights of computer science, Sir Tony has played
influential roles in both industry and academia.  He worked in
industry at Elliott Brothers from 1960 through 1968, at Queen's
University in Belfast from 1968 through 1977, at Oxford University
from 1977 through 1999, and has been a leading figure at Microsoft
Research Cambridge since 1999.  He influenced many generations of
computer scientists and will continue to influence the science for
many generations to come.

Obviously, he is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, too
many to list them all.  I will simply mention that he obtained his
first honorary doctorate at the University of Southern California
almost 30 years ago, and he is the winner of the extremely prestigious
1980 Turing award.  He was knighted in 2000 for his services to
computer science and education.

Chancellor [or Vice-Chancellor], in the name of the University and by
the authority of the Senate, in recognition of his outstanding
achievements in many areas of computer science that have shaped the
field as we know it today, I call upon you to confer the honorary
degree of XXX on Sir Tony Hoare.

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Subject: Tony Hoare info

• born in Sri Lanka in 1934 (he is 73 years old)
• studies and work:
  ◦ studied philosophy, Latin, and Greek at Oxford University, then
    statistics
  ◦ was in Royal Navy briefly (national service)
  ◦ graduate student studying computer translation of human languages
    at Moscow State University
  ◦ in industry (Elliott Brothers) from 1960 through 1968
  ◦ at Queen's University (Belfast) from 1968 through 1977
  ◦ at Oxford from 1977 through 1999 (22 years)
  ◦ at Microsoft Research since 1999
• major awards:
  ◦ winner of 1980 Turing award!
  ◦ knighted in 2000!
  ◦ honorary doctorate at U. Southern California in 1979
    (probably many honorary doctorates by now)
• major Computer Science achievements:
  ◦ discovered quicksort (1959, rewritten in Algol 60 in 1961)
    ‣ widely used today
    ‣ O(n²)
    ‣ O(n log n) on _average_
    ‣ in practice often fastest (despite not having best worst case
      complexity)
  ◦ programming language design and implementation work:
    ‣ Algol (1961 through 1968)
      ⁃ led team that developed first (commercial) Algol 60 compiler
      ⁃ served on committee for maintaining and improving Algol 60
      ⁃ designed the “case statement” for Algol 60 (now used by
        many other languages)
      ⁃ watched failure of Algol 68 design effort
    ‣ served on committee watching failure of PL/1 design effort (1965
      through 1970)
    ‣ advised the Ada design effort and watched it go awry (1975
      through 1980 (and maybe later))
    ‣ well known for criticisms of the designs of the Algol 68, PL/1,
      and Ada programming languages, summarized in his new fable “the
      emperor's old clothes” (in which the _clothes_ have no emperor
      inside them!) given in his Turing award lecture
  ◦ developed Hoare logic (1969)
    ‣ supports axiomatic semantics of programming languages
    ‣ first logic specialized for proving behavior of programs
    ‣ still being developed and extended today
    ‣ helped inspire the widely used Z specification language
  ◦ developed CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes) (1978)
    ‣ one of the first process algebras/calculi (Milner's CCS is
      documented in a 1980 monograph, but I'm not sure that is the
      first paper on CCS)
    ‣ CSP is the basis of the “occam” programming language which was
      used by the “transputer” of the (British) INMOS Ltd. company in
      the 1980s