Larry Tesler
Encyclopedia
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
, Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
Tesler studied computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in the 1960s, and worked for a time at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. From 1973 to 1980, he was at Xerox PARC, where, among other things, he worked on the Gypsy
Gypsy (software)
Gypsy was the first document preparation system based on a mouse and graphical user interface to take advantage of those technologies to virtually eliminate modes. Its operation would be familiar to any user of a modern personal computer...
word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
and Smalltalk
Smalltalk
Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...
.
In 1980, Tesler moved to Apple Computer, where he held various positions, including Vice President of AppleNet, Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group, and Chief Scientist. He worked on the Apple Lisa
Apple Lisa
The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....
team and was enthusiastic about the development of the Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
as well as the successors to the Lisa the Apple II series
Apple II series
The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...
and Lisa's later high end replacement the Macintosh Plus
Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus computer was the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2599...
.
In 1985, Tesler worked with Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Emil Wirth is a Swiss computer scientist, best known for designing several programming languages, including Pascal, and for pioneering several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984 he won the Turing Award for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages.-Biography:Wirth...
to add object-oriented language extensions to the Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
programming language, calling the new language Object Pascal
Object Pascal
Object Pascal refers to a branch of object-oriented derivatives of Pascal, mostly known as the primary programming language of Embarcadero Delphi.-Early history at Apple:...
. He also was instrumental in developing MacApp
MacApp
MacApp was Apple Computer's primary object oriented application framework for the Mac OS for much of the 1990s. First released in 1985, it is arguably the first such system to be widely used, notably on a microcomputer platform...
, one of the first class libraries for application development. Eventually, these two technologies became shipping Apple products.
Starting in 1990, Tesler led the efforts to develop the Apple Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
, initially as Vice President of the Advanced Development Group, and then as Vice President of the Personal Interactive Electronics division.
In 1991, he contributed the article "Networked Computing in the 1990s" to Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks, September, 1991.
Tesler left Apple in 1997 to co-found Stagecast Software, which allowed him to apply his enthusiasm for kids' programming and use of computers, an enthusiasm he acquired mainly at Xerox PARC, where he worked in Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
's Learning Research Group.
Tesler joined Amazon.com in 2001; in 2004, he became the company's Vice President of Shopping Experience. In 2005, he joined Yahoo! as Vice President of Yahoo!'s User Experience and Design group.
In November, 2008, he left Yahoo to join personal genetics information company, 23andMe
23andMe
23andMe is a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in Mountain View, California that is developing new methods and technologies that will enable consumers to understand their own genetic information...
as Product Fellow. Since December, 2009, he has been an independent consultant.
Tesler is on the board of the Gorilla Foundation.
Tesler has a strong preference for modeless software, in which a user action has a consistent effect, rather than changing its meaning dependent on previous actions, as in the vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...
text editor. His Gypsy
Gypsy (software)
Gypsy was the first document preparation system based on a mouse and graphical user interface to take advantage of those technologies to virtually eliminate modes. Its operation would be familiar to any user of a modern personal computer...
editor, for example, provided a 'click and type' interface in which the user could, at any time, enter text at the current insertion point, or click where the insertion point should be repositioned. Previously, most editors used the keyboard to enter text or to issue commands, depending on the current mode. To promote his preference, as of 2010, Tesler has equipped his Subaru automobile with a personalized California license plate with the license number "NO MODES". He has used this license number since about 1980. Along with others, he has also been using the phrase "Don't Mode Me In" for years as a rally cry to eliminate or reduce modes.
See also
- AI effectAI effectThe AI effect occurs when onlookers discount the behavior of an artificial intelligence program by arguing that it is not real intelligence....
- List of programmers
- List of computer scientists
- Law of conservation of complexityLaw of conservation of complexityThe law of conservation of complexity states that every application must have an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. Who will have to deal with it—the user, the application developer, or the platform developer? It's a very simple but important concept for Interaction Design with major...
External links
- Larry Tesler home page
- Gorilla Foundation board members page
- Publications by Larry Tesler from Interaction-Design.org
- Stagecast site