John Walker, founder of Autodesk, has died
News of Autodesk founder John Walker’s death prompts wide reflection on his outsized but often quiet influence on computing culture. Commenters recall his role in making AutoCAD a transformative tool for engineering and architecture, as well as his eclectic personal projects such as the Fourmilab website, the Hacker’s Diet, HotBits hardware RNG, cellular automata tools, and extension languages like AutoLISP and ATLAST. Many emphasize how his writings, open software, and generous private correspondence shaped careers, inspired healthy habits, and embodied a hacker ethos that blended technical rigor with curiosity and independence.
Overall reactions & circumstances
- Many express shock and sadness, describing the death as a major loss for “hackers” and engineers.
- Reported cause (via linked prior thread): a fall down stairs causing extensive, inoperable intracranial bleeding.
- Some note the irony that someone so focused on health and exercise died relatively early, with others stressing this was an accident, not lifestyle-related.
Fourmilab & writing
- Fourmilab is praised as a quintessential “old web” personal site: eclectic, deep, and highly influential.
- Frequently cited works:
- “The Autodesk File” on the founding and growth of Autodesk; seen as timeless startup/management reading.
- Essays like “Digital Imprimatur” and “The Internet Slum” on control and degradation of the internet.
- “Bending Spacetime in the Basement,” retropsychokinesis experiments, book reviews, SF stories, statistics primers, spam filters, and more.
- Several hope the site will be preserved; others report it is being taken care of.
AutoCAD, Autodesk, and software impact
- AutoCAD is credited with transforming drafting, enabling PC-based CAD, paging large drawings, running with/without 8087, and embedding AutoLISP for safe extensibility.
- Commenters describe careers launched via AutoCAD, AutoLISP, and related Autodesk tools (AutoShade, 3D Studio, Science Series).
- There is criticism that Autodesk’s current public channels have not (yet) acknowledged his death.
The Hacker’s Diet & health debates
- The Hacker’s Diet is cited as life-changing by many, often enabling durable weight loss through CICO thinking and trend-weight tracking.
- Some see it as a clear, empowering framework adaptable to any diet; others argue CICO-centric approaches are hard to sustain and oversimplify biology.
- There is discussion of newer research on exercise, metabolism, and intermittent fasting; commenters disagree sharply on how much of the book’s advice holds up.
Other projects & technical contributions
- Mentioned projects include:
- ATLAST (Forth-like extension language) and its forks.
- CelLab, CHAOS, Artificial Life Lab, Home Planet, WebCA, and cellular automata work.
- HotBits hardware RNG, Speak Freely VoIP, XSunclock.
- Floating-point benchmark (fbench), memory-debugging allocator (smartalloc), early neural nets on C64, language benchmarks, rocket essays.
Personal interactions & character
- Many recount generous email help, phone calls, in-person support, and mentoring even to random strangers.
- Described as technically formidable, curious across domains, opinionated, yet usually polite and engaging.
Politics, language, and optics
- His anti–big-government / anti-EU writings are seen by some as prescient or consistent; others find them odd or hard to distinguish from satire.
- A “strikeout” essay advocating discarding texts at the first language error is viewed by some as rigorous and by others as extreme and impractical.
- Long threads discuss his myopia and lens-care advice, broader debates on progressives vs. single-vision lenses, and cataract-surgery choices.
Legacy
- Overall, commenters credit him with:
- Helping define the PC CAD era.
- Inspiring personal health, quantitative self-tracking, and lifelong learning.
- Demonstrating what a single, independently minded engineer can build and share over decades.