Mers Kutt here, I gather Ian passed away recently and am sad to hear that. I have fond memories of Ian and he was a great supporter at all times and a delight to chat with on way too few occasions. Cheers, Mers [email protected]
On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 16:28:02 -0400, Robert Bernecky <[email protected]> wrote: I have uploaded a draft of Whitney Smith's 1984 interview with Ian Sharp to the Snake Island Research Inc web site, here, thanks to yeoman efforts by Robin Easton of Ratspace Studios: http://www.snakeisland.com/IanSharpInterviewDraft.mp4 Interviews with other IPSAns to follow, but everything should eventually show up at ipsharp.org, currently very much under construction, so not available yet. Ian was a gentle father to all of us, as Joey noted. I was always amazed by Ian's mode of interrogation: he would sit in his office, quietly, perhaps playing with his doomed slide rule, and the unfortunate, or fortunate, one would sit down, while Ian very loudly emitted his enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, and silence. The victim would soon start to fidget, and eventually blurt out whatever was on his/her/their/its mind, while Ian continued to politely listen. When they were "done", they would look at Ian for some kind of response. More often than not, Ian would just nod, expectantly. In rare cases, he might come out with a quiet "and...?" or other word to that effect. Soon, all the beans would be on the floor, nobody would have suffered slings or arrows, and the issue would, more or less, resolve itself, often after Ian asked the person what they proposed to do about it. Often, said proposal had clearly changed during the meeting. Like Joey, I was on the receiving end of one of Ian's non-lectures more than once. It was, however, always more enlightening (Okay, more fun...) to be in Ian's office when he was having such a chat with some other, less fortunate, being. At the time, I wondered if Ian interrogated spies in the pre-IPSA days. I still do. Re his cutting wit that Eric mentioned, Ian saved his most caustic remarks for the greed of the various phone companies on the planet, there being a shortage of windmills at that time. Once, Bell Canada refused to offer a discount on our order of a large number of land lines, despite the proximity (a few hundred metres) of Bell's central office to our computer center, saying that it did not matter where the lines were to go, the price would remain the same. At this point, Ian pointedly suggested to Roger Moore that IPSA should reconsider their plan to put the computer center on Ward's Island (about 10km away) at which point the Bell rep's face went white. I'm not sure what the upshot of that meeting was, but presumably it went well for Ian and for IPSA. Bob rbe On 2021-07-18 1:47 a.m., Joey K Tuttle wrote: > I have many great memories of Ian and his amazing sense of humor laced with > cleverness. Even being chastised by Ian is a memory I cherish. > > Many of us agree that he provided the most fun environment we could imagine > and we thought it was amazing to be paid for something we loved to do. > >> On 2021Jul 17, at 12:40, Eric Iverson wrote: >> >> Ian Sharp, founder of I.P. Sharp Associates (IPSA), passed on 2021-07-16. >> Ian played pivotal roles in every aspect of the APL/J/K story. I, and so >> many others, can say without reservation that he was the best boss ever. >> More mentor than boss. An astute business person, he always had a twinkle >> in his eye and a cutting wit. >> >> *Ian Sharp Quotations and Anecdotes >> * >> >> *(chat forum for comments please)* >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm -- Robert Bernecky Snake Island Research Inc 18 Fifth Street Ward's Island Toronto, Ontario M5J 2B9 [email protected] tel: +1 416 203 0854 text/cell: +1 416 996 4286 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
