Police ID Man Found In Water: Dr James Martin | Hacker News Reader

Police ID Man Found In Water: Dr James Martin

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154 pointsmuloka33 comments

I just read his selected bibliography on wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Martin_(author)#Publicat... ) and I somehow never realized that all these foundational works of computer science were written by the same guy. "Design of real time computer systems" in particular is part of the bedrock of modern computing.

We referenced that book heavily back when we were building a real-time medical data acquisition system. I still remember some of the charts from it. Like optimizing for lowest disk latency.

And Wikipedia is missing what is, to me, his best known book from 1991: Rapid Application Development. You can get it on Amazon, though.

Seems it's time for the HN memorial black navbar to make its appearance.

Dr. Martin will be missed.

I know your comment is well intentioned but it still rubs me the wrong way so I apologize if I offend you in any way since that is not really my point.

It feels wrong to tell the web master that he should modify the website to pay tribute to somebody you think is important (whether true or not I'm not sure it is really relevant). Especially considering that I myself do not know who the guy is and yet I've been in the field for 10 years (call me stupid).

The whole comment feels quite presumptuous. Honoring Aaron Swartz seemed like a no brainer but other than that is it really OK to put PG on the spot. What happens if he decides not to do it, will you think of him badly?

In my experience, whenever a death in the industry makes the frontpage of HN, the black banner has come out. I don't think it's terribly presumptuous to bring it up. I won't hold any ill will toward pg or the rest of the HN mods if they decide he wasn't significant enough or close enough to the HN community or whatever.

You are over-thinking it.

That is funny. I've been told many times that I over think stuff. Turns out a lot of time it is true and it probably is this time.

Black navbar time, yeah. This is a sad day.

I never seem to learn about these interesting people until they're dead. :-/

His work hasn't been so much in the collective consciousness in the last 25 years or so, so it isn't that surprising.

His donation to Oxford funded some of my early postgraduate work back in 2009.

I actually had an opportunity to meet with him a couple of weeks after I began the work, but not knowing who he was (or being particularly computer-history savy at the time) I didn't push it. In hindsight (not just today, but generally) I've always regretted not realizing who he was at the time.

Some interesting stuff going on in that part of Oxford: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/videos/

Also (from a comment in the article) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9JUmFWn7t4 is an interview with the man himself and http://www.jamesmartin.com/film/ a longer video.

I'm really sad to hear about this. Dr Martin was an amazing man. His work helped change our world, but few people have heard of him.

Most of all, I respect his philanthropy. He cared about cost-effective philanthropy. He focused on the most important problems facing humanity -- I think he more or less bankrolled the field of existential risk research.

This is terrible, sad news. "The Wired Society" is a milestone in technology writing—James Martin predicted today's world with eerie prescience, all the way back in the 1970s. I read that book as a child, and I still go back to it and marvel at how right he was.

Rest in peace, Dr. Martin. You made a dent in the world.

Indeed it is. Its sad, looks like this was accidental. This guy was a legend.

"Dr. Martin’s lifeless body was found floating in the waters ... at this time there does not appear to be any suspicious circumstances."

What?

He was 79. It's very possible he drowned without any foul play.

people fall down by accident sometimes, and it's more dangerous for older folk to fall, no?

Oxford Martin School pays tribute to Dr. James Martin on its website's front page:

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/

This is a great example of why Bootstrap can be good. That site uses Bootstrap, if it wasn't for the buttons would anyone have noticed that?

Anyway, RIP Doc!

Surprised this story has not yet been covered by any major news outlets, tech or otherwise.

Tragic

The title should of read:

Creator of Rapid Application Development, Dr James Martin, dies at 79

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Martin_%28author%29

Somehow that's not nearly enough.

Amazing that he was able to buy his own island and donate $100MM+ to Oxford University.

Its tough this guy was such a legend and so I thought "Creator of Rapid Application Development" would probably pique most people's interests amongst Hacker News' demographic.

I had also considered this:

Largest Benefactor to Oxford University, Dr. James Martin, dies at 79

Hi, this is a small nit about your comment: You say "... $100MM+ ..." but how is that different than "... $100M+ ..." ? If it's not different, then why double the "M"? Thanks! (Perhaps it's just a typo.)

Different areas have different conventions, leading to some confusion. Finance uses MM for a million, the physical sciences use M. In the the finance case 'M' comes from the Latin 'mille', meaning thousand, so MM means thousand thousand. In the sciences M means Mega (from the Greek meaning 'Great'), which is the SI prefix for 10^6

dagw answered this. "MM" is one convention for million, and somehow over the years I've adopted it.

another alternative:

Computing Legend, Dr. James Martin, dies at 79

Also coined the term 4GL.

Truly a legend.

He figured out that P=NP and the CIA had him whacked.

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