Bill Atkinson, one of Apple's first and important engineers, died, has a significant impact on the development of graphic user interfaces. He died at June 5 at the age of 74 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. This has been reported by 9to5Mac publication.
Apple General Director Tim Cook expressed his condolences by honoring Atkinson's memory. In his message on social network X (Twitter) Cook wrote:
We are extremely sad at the death of Bill Atkinson. He is a person with a real vision, who has creativity, soul and creative work on Mac that has brought us forever. Our thoughts are with his loved ones.
Atkinson is not only an excellent programmer, but also the motivation of many Apple signs. Joining the company in 1978 as the 51st employee, he quickly became one of Steve Jobs's most reliable colleagues.
As a key member of the initial Macintosh group, he created a Macpain graphic editor, developed the QaKDraw library and later became a pioneer in creating Hypercard. His work laid the foundation for many elements of modern user interface, which we found today was granted, recorded in 9TO5MAC.
Famous IT journalist John Gruber also commented on the death of Atkinson.
I say this without exaggerating: Bill Atkinson, perhaps, is the best computer programmer from those who have ever lived. No doubt, he entered this short list.