https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_mourns_loss_of_volunteer_John_Shutt Wikinews mourns loss of volunteer John Shutt From Wikinews, the free news source you can write! This is the stable version, checked on 1 March 2021. 1 pending change awaits review. Accuracy Spot checked Jump to navigation Jump to search Wikimedia-logo.svg This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Saturday, February 27, 2021 Obituaries Wikinews-logo-obituaries.png * 27 February 2021: Wikinews mourns loss of volunteer John Shutt * 5 February 2021: Fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore dies aged 100 with COVID-19 * 28 December 2020: US professional wrestler Jon Huber dies aged 41 * 8 October 2020: Guitarist Eddie Van Halen dies, aged 65 * 3 September 2020: Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee dies aged 84 Collaborate! * Pillars of Wikinews writing * Writing an article On Friday, Wikinews learned Dr John Nathan Shutt, a long-time contributor to both Wikinews and Wikibooks, died on Wednesday. Editing under the name Pi zero, he was at the time the top contributor to Wikinews by edit count, and came third on English Wikibooks. Dr Shutt was 56 years old. Dr Shutt looking toward the camera File photo of Dr John Nathan Shutt in 2020. Image: acagastya. Dr Shutt's elder sister, Ms Barbara Shutt, informed Wikinews about his death via email on early Friday. His mother, Elsie Shutt had called 9-1-1 emergency services after he had trouble breathing. By the time the ambulance came, Dr Shutt was unconscious. Ms Barbara Shutt also added the doctors operated on him for two hours, but at the end, Dr Shutt died either by blood clots or by a series of heart attacks. Dr Shutt was the most active editor and administrator on this project and had been contributing as Pi zero since September 2008. He was promoted to administrator in July 2010 and became a reviewer in August 2010. Since then, he has peer-reviewed then published over a thousand news articles on-wiki, the most recent being just a day before his death. He made over 160 thousand edits and over 120 thousand log entries on English Wikinews. He also held reviewer and administrator privileges on English Wikibooks, having contributed to several wikibooks including Conlang, World Religions, Solar System and The Elements; and created Stacks, a mechanism for sorting the project's content. Dr Shutt would occasionally write blogs on his blogger called "Structural insight". Dr Shutt was interested in constructed languages (conlangs). He was an avid reader, and enjoyed J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novels. In a discussion about Tolkien's works last year, Dr Shutt said, "I read The Hobbit when I was, I think, a teenager. I read it again a few months ago; not sure if I ever read it between those times. It's a wonderfully written story --- by a linguist and, in fact, a conlanger. I've got the Lord of the Rings (the books, I mean), which I've read at least a couple of times over the years. And the Silmarillion, which covers the earliest part of Tolkien's legendarium. Christopher Tolkien, his son who was close to his fantasy writing, is his literary executor and has spent the past half century of his life editing and publishing various of his father's papers. I actually got for christmas... a year ago, I think, The Fall of Gondolin, which Christopher says will be the last of his father's books that he publishes." Dr Shutt was awarded a PhD in Computer Science in 2011 from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts. His research interests included Abstraction theory; the Kernel programming language, a Lisp-based language which he created and was his dissertation topic; Recursive Adaptive Grammars, the core of his master's thesis as well as Self-Modifying Finite Automata which he developed with Roy Rubinstein. He had received his master's degree in 1993, five years after finishing his bachelor's degree, both from WPI. Dr John Shutt was also interested in adaptive grammar as well as category theory. He often programmed in Lisp, enjoyed xkcd comics and used Emacs as his choice of text editor. He had spent one year at the Brown University for his post-graduate academics. Recalling the experience, Dr. Shutt said, "I spent one year at Brown, but it didn't work. And was a traumatic experience for me; it took me a couple of years to recover enough to make a second try at graduate school." Dr Shutt shared an office with Paul Howard in the 1988/89 academic year at Brown University. In July 2019, Dr Shutt said, "It saddens me that I forgot to wish Paul Howard a happy birthday this year, and he appears to have forgotten to wish me one either. First time we've failed to exchange birthday wishes, even if belatedly, since we were assigned to share an office in the 1988/89 academic year at Brown". File:Michael MacInnis - Oh a new Unix shell - BSDCan 2018.webmPlay media Presentation at BSDCan discussing fexpr. Image: BSDCan. Andres Navarro and Oto Havle had created an implementation of Kernel programming language, called kernel, which was mentioned in a presentation at BSDCan by Michael MacInnis. Recalling that incident in November, Dr Shutt said, "Two or three years ago, this guy Michael MacInnis emailed me. He was getting ready to give a talk at BSDCan (an annual BSD conference in Canada) about a new UNIX shell he was ready to release, called Oh; and he wanted to know if it was okay if he mentioned my name in regard to fexprs, 'cause my dissertation had come out as he was putting the design together and Kernel-style fexprs fit wonderfully well with his concept so he used them. I assured him I was fine with having my name mentioned. Last night I was watching the video he provides of his talk, which iirc he felt went very well. I've been meaning to learn in more detail how the shell works; it was kind of fascinating to me how it very easily does away with most of Lisp's parentheses despite being fundamentally Lisp. (Cons cells and fexprs. Profoundly Lisp.)". Dr Shutt's cat lounging in the sunlight Dr Shutt's cat Pickles in the morning sun (the window door behind him faces due east). His fur color comes out looking different here than in most light. Image: Juan. Dr Shutt lived with Asperger's syndrome. In a discussion with one of the Wikimedia volunteers, he said, "As often happens with aspies, I was a hyperlexic kid, some of which has lingered." Dr Shutt lived in Massachusetts, US, and is survived by his mother Elsie Shutt, his sister and niece Barbara and Hannah Shutt, his cat Pickles and his brother David Shutt. Dr Shutt would have turned 57 next Friday. Have an opinion on this story? Share it! Sister links * "Seven Russians infected with H5N8 bird flu; first cases reported in humans" -- Wikinews, February 23, 2021 * Wikibooks-logo.svg Conlang * Wikibooks-logo.svg Wikijunior:World Religions * Wikibooks-logo.svg Wikijunior:Solar System * Wikibooks-logo.svg Wikijunior:The Elements * Wikibooks-logo.svg Wikibooks Stacks * Commons-logo.svg File:Michael MacInnis - Oh a new Unix shell - BSDCan 2018.webm Sources Wikinews This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details. Wikinews This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details. * "English Wikinews user statistics" -- WikiScan, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "English Wikibooks user statistics" -- WikiScan, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "klisp source code" -- git.hannabi.in, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "klisp" -- klisp.org, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Academic Work" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "The Kernel Programming Language" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Abstraction Theory" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Self-Modifying Finite Automata" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Adaptive Grammars" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "My Master's Thesis" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "User contributions (Wikinews)" -- Wikinews, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "User rights log (Wikinews)" -- Wikinews, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "User rights log (Wikibooks)" -- Wikibooks, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * "User:Pi zero (Wikibooks)" -- Wikibooks, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Structural insight" -- Blogspot, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * BSDCan. "Michael MacInnis: Oh a new Unix shell - BSDCan 2018" -- YouTube, August 2, 2018 * The Boston Globe. "Phillip R. Shutt" -- legacy.com, April 19, 2012 External links * Dr John Shutt. "Web Surfing" -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, February 26, 2021 (date of access) * Dr John Shutt. "Structural insight" -- Blogspot, February 26, 2021 (date of access) Bookmark-new.svg Share this: E-mail this story Share on Facebook Share on reddit.com Share on LinkedIn.com Share on twitter.com * Retrieved from "https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title= Wikinews_mourns_loss_of_volunteer_John_Shutt&oldid=4608445" Categories: * Wikimedia Foundation * February 27, 2021 * Original reporting * United States * Massachusetts * North America * Obituaries * Published Hidden categories: * Pages with template loops * Pages with forced foreign links * Pages with defaulting non-local links * Acagastya (Wikinewsie) * Articles not disputed Navigation menu Personal tools * Not logged in * Talk * Contributions * Create account * Log in Namespaces * Article * Collaboration [ ] Variants Views * Read * Pending changes * View source * View history [ ] More Search [ ] [Search] [Go] Navigation * Main page * Newsroom * Recent changes * Random article * Archives * Free use media upload Wikinews * Help * Pillars of writing * Write an article * Water cooler * Style guide * Live chat * Donate * Contact us Regions * Africa * Antarctica * Asia * Central America * Europe * Middle East * North America * Oceania * South America Tools * What links here * Related changes * Special pages * Permanent link * Page information * Cite this page * Wikidata item Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version In other languages * Esperanto * Magyar Edit links * This page was last edited on 1 March 2021, at 20:02. * Creative Commons License All text created after September 25, 2005 available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License, unless otherwise specified. 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