Ralph Griswold: “I wish I had done it myself. In the long run I always do.”

I wrote in a previous post Computer History Museum: Preserving Snobol and Spitbol Artifacts about SNOBOL and Spitbol, and noted therein the death of Ralph Griswold late last year.

I took immense satisfaction in his work on the SNOBOL and ICON programming languages though
I never had the good fortune to meet Ralph.Our only dealings had to do with some SNOBOL matter close to three decades ago. I forget the details except that during a phone conversation he made one of the wisest remarks I have ever heard:

Ralph Griswold: I wish I had done it myself. In the long run I always do.

Another was from Jack Schwartz:

Jack Schwartz: Work is a signed quantity.

A picture of Ralph can be found at Ralph E. Griswold Memorial Endowment.

Ralph Griswold – May his memory be a blessing.