"[About Algol 60 subset implementation] [E]very occurrence of every subscript of every subscripted variable was on every occasion checked at run time against both the upper and the lower declared bounds of the array. Many years later we asked our customers whether they wished us to provide an option to switch off these checks in the interests of efficiency on production runs. Unanimously, they urged us not to - they already knew how frequently subscript errors occur on production runs where failure to detect them could be disastrous. I note with fear and horror that even in 1980, language designers and users have not learned this lesson. In any respectable branch of engineering, failure to observe such elementary precautions would have long been against the law."
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Computer scientists from the United KingdomTuring Award laureatesFellows of the Royal SocietyUniversity of Oxford facultyUniversity of Oxford alumni
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C. A. R. Hoare
Charles Antony Richard Hoare (Tony Hoare or C.A.R. Hoare, 11 January 1934 – 5 March 2026) was a British computer scientist, and winner of the 1980 Turing Award. He is best known for his fundamental contributions to the definition and design of programming languages, and for the development of Quicksort, the world's most widely used sorting algorithm.
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