computer science

Larry Tesler

Larry Tesler is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Larry Tesler rather than just read about it. In short: Lawrence Gordon Tesler (April 24, 1945 – February 16, 2020) was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.

Key takeaways

Larry Tesler belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Larry Tesler to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Larry Tesler from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lawrence Gordon Tesler (April 24, 1945 – February 16, 2020) was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!. While at PARC, Tesler's work included Smalltalk, the first dynamic object-oriented programming language, and Gypsy, the first word processor with a graphical user interface (GUI) for the Xerox Alto. During this, along with colleague Tim Mott, Tesler developed the idea of cut, copy, and paste functionality and the idea of modeless software. While at Apple, Tesler worked on the Apple Lisa and the Apple Newton, and helped to develop Object Pascal and its use in application programming toolkits including MacApp.

Biography

Early career Tesler was born on April 24, 1945, in The Bronx in New York City, to Jewish parents Isidore, an anesthesiologist, and Muriel (née Krechmer). Tesler lived in the Bronx through his childhood and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1961. While in high school, he was guided towards computers by a teacher after showing the teacher an algorithm for generating prime numbers. Through this, he learned of a program at Columbia University where he was able to spend a half-hour each week on their computer systems, through which he taught himself programming before college. He went on to Stanford University in 1961 when he was 16, studying computer science and graduating in 1965 with a degree in mathematics. At Stanford, he had spent time as a student programmer for Joshua Lederberg on the LINC platform, and was a colleague of Larry Breed, Charles Brenner, Douglas Hofstadter, Roger Moore, and Bill Strachan. During college and afterward, Tesler did some programming jobs on the side, and after graduation, worked as a consultant offering his programming services in the area. As he was one of only a few computer programmers listed in the Palo Alto phone directory he received a good deal of work. However, a regional recession caused this consulting work to dry up. Tesler also worked at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) in the late 1960s. With Horace Enea he designed Compel, an early single assignment language. This functional programming language was intended to make concurrent processing more natural and was used to introduce programming concepts to beginners. During his time at Stanford, Tesler had participated in the counterculture of the 1960s, including the anti-Vietnam War protests. In the late 1960s, Tesler became involved in the Midpeninsula Free University, part of the Free Speech Movement, where he taught classes with titles such as "How to end the IBM Monopoly", "Computers Now", and "Procrastination".

Xerox PARC Tesler left Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory due to a number of factors in the early 1970s; he recognized that artificial intelligence would not be a usable technology for many years. Tesler is quoted as stating around this time that "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet.", with Douglas Hofstadter calling this Tesler's Theorem. Tesler says that he was misquoted, his actual statement being "Intelligence is whatever machines haven't done yet." At this time, Tesler's marriage to his college girlfriend had ended in divorce. He took his daughter and moved to Oregon with a number of Vietnam War veterans who were returning there to build homes. There was little computing technology in this area and he could not get a job with the local bank, the only firm nearby with a computer system. He called Stanford to see if they had anything, and learned that Alan Kay, with whom Tesler had worked while at SAIL and then a member of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), had been actively looking for him shortly after his departure. Kay wanted Tesler to join him at PARC. Tesler could not be hired at PARC due to a hiring freeze, so Tesler instead took a short-term project offered by Les Earnest from SAIL to write a "document compiler", a means to easily produce printable manuals from simple text files. In order to carry out this project, Tesler wrote Pub, which was then recognized as one of the first uses of markup language; it was later distributed on ARPANet.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Larry Tesler

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Larry Tesler claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Larry Tesler before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Larry Tesler ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Larry Tesler

In research: Larry Tesler appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Larry Tesler in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Larry Tesler is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1945 births, 2020 deaths, 20th-century American scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Larry Tesler outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Larry Tesler in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Larry Tesler means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Larry Tesler out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Larry Tesler in simple terms?

Why does Larry Tesler matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Larry Tesler?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Larry Tesler.