Tim Peters has died

Guido van Rossum guido CPython core developer 12h I am immensely sad to announce that Tim Peters has died earlier this year on July 15. It’s hard to overestimate Tim’s influence on Python. He’s probably best known for writing the Zen of Python ( PEP 20 ), but to me he was a mentor and language co-designer long before that. Tim found Python not long after its initial release. His first deed was to convince me that Python should support mixed arithmetic between int and float , because most users would expect them to work that way. And he never stopped contributing. Tim quickly became a major phenomenon on the Python mailing list (including later incarnations and spinoffs), where he earned the nickname “Timbot” by his innumerable, careful and patient answers to user questions. These he filled with mild humor (always marked by or <0.5 wink> ) and often referred to as “channeling Guido”. At the same time Tim participated in numerous in-depth design discussions, saving me or others from embarrassing design mistakes or solving deep problems, guided by his vast mathematical knowledge and compiler-building experience. In fact, Tim really set the tone for early core development, never outright dismissing people and explaining in detail why things could or couldn’t work. In 2002, Tim gave us Timsort : a new sorting algorithm he designed for Python lists, which was later adopted by Java and Android. Python-would-not-be-what-it-is-today-without-Tim-ly y’rs, –Guido 6.9k views 324 likes 22 links 22 users 2 read 10 min Top replies