Voting Station

Larry Tesler

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Computer Tech

The Resume

    (April 24, 1945-February 16, 2020)
    Born in The Bronx, New York
    Worked at Xerox, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!
    Developed Pub, one of the first markup languages
    Developed Gypsy, the first word processor with a graphical user interface (GUI)
    Created the cut, copy, and paste functions for editing
    Promoted the use of icons to represent programs and documents on a computer
    Developed the program allowing Amazon customers to preview books online
    Credited with coining the words ‘browser’ and ‘user-friendly’ and introducing into computing the phrase ‘what you see is what you get’

Why he might be annoying:

    He was originally interested in artificial intelligence, ‘But one day I woke up and realized that this stuff wouldn’t be practical for decades.’
    He came to regret coining the phrase ‘user-friendly’ after every company began using the term to advertise their software, regardless of how true it was.
    He said about his work on the Newton personal digital assistant at Apple, ‘I did a few things right at the beginning of that project, and then I made an unbelievable series of mistakes.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    He enrolled in Stanford at age 16.
    In developing programs, he would ask ordinary users, rather than computer experts, what they wanted the machine to do.
    He made ‘modeless’ word processing a standard. (Previously, the software operated in separate modes. Entering text would be done in one mode, but editing the text would require the user to switch to a different mode.)
    His innovations were described as ‘one of the major reasons computers moved out of research centers and into homes.’
    He helped design a computer to be used by Koko and later joined the board of the Gorilla Foundation.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 40 Votes: 67.50% Annoying