Former BCPL compiler maintainer Simon Langley has died
Simon used to maintain the BCPL compiler at Warwick University and helped many people start their careers in Computer Science.
I knew him as a very funny and friendly near neighbour, and occasionally he'd tell some tales from computer history. He graduated from Cambridge and got his first job in Computer Science from an interview with Tony Hoare. It wasn't a technical interview in those days, it was a chat over lunch. This must have been the 1950s or 60s.
Amongst other jobs, he worked at Warwick University. He used to tell of the scramble to find people to teach computer science in the early days (I think he was Head of School?).
He has since helped many people start their careers in Computer Science, even until recently when he was a tutor for Open University. He was very sharp, but also had a great sense of humour, so I imagine learning from him was a pleasure.
He kept learning until the end. Before he started his cancer treatment he was worried it would affect his memory. He learnt Go so he could test his memory before and after.
Simon is survived by his lovely wife Eleanor. I think I just found his Phd thesis (https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/lazy-exact-real-computation) and his acknowledgements say this about Eleanor "I owe her more that I can say for this and for everything."
I just thought I'd mention his passing here in case anyone had interactions with him and would like to share them.