Sir Tony Hoare, who has died aged 92, was a leading figure in computer software design best known for developing a leading algorithm for sorting lists – when he was 26.

An obituary of Tony Hoare, a pioneer and one of the greatest programmers in the early history of computing.

The word algorithm was derived from the name Al-Khwarizmi, a 9th-century Persian mathematician and author of The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing. But nowadays the word most ...