In the year of our Lord 2024 January the 1st, computer science pioneer Niklaus Wirth passed away.

I knew him first for being the creator of Pascal which was one of the first programming languages I encountered (along with BASIC) as I dipped my toes into programming.

Funny joke of his that is now floating around the web:

Besides his contribution to language design, he authored one of the best puns ever. His last name is properly pronounced something like “Virt” but in the US everyone calls him by “Worth”.That led him to quip, “In Europe I’m called by name, but in the US I’m called by value.”