Who really gives a rat's tail about the meaning of life when we're all just scampering around, trying to dodge death, or in my case, peeking at it curiously from around the corner? So, fancy this: a computer programmer kicks the bucket because of... programming? Hilarious, right?
Thomas E. Kurtz, the mad genius behind making computers understandable to us dumbskulls, has left the building—or should I say, left the motherboard? Yep, he woefully succumbed to multiple organ failure from sepsis at the tender age of 96. Hey, if you're going to go, why not in the deep embrace of irony?
Back in the dark ages of the 1960s, when people actually spoke to each other face-to-face (weird, I know), computers were as big as a Mini Cooper, and just as temperamental. If you were at Dartmouth, where Mr. Kurtz lectured, you were dealing with a lone behemoth computer. Can you imagine? A single computer? I can't even manage one Zoom call without wanting to jump out of a window.
Kurtz, alongside another code conjurer, John G. Kemeny, decided it'd be fab if every Tom, Dick, and Harriet understood these monstrosities. Thus, BASIC was born, and suddenly, everyone's invited to the coding party.
Honestly, the joke's on us, folks. We embraced personal computing like a life raft, not knowing it's actually a slow, insidious slide into oblivion. But hey, at least we can tweet about our existential dread at lightning speed, right?
In tribute to ol' Tommy, I plan on dying alone with my laptop, which is currently on fire. Seems fitting. Computers: can't live with them, can't live without becoming increasingly neurotic. Cheers to that!
Based on the original article "Thomas E. Kurtz, co-creator of BASIC programming language, dies at 96".
