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Interview with Simon Peyton Jones

“Functional programming is a radical and elegant attack on the entire enterprise of writing programs.  And I think it will have a long term impact; when the limestone of imparting programming has worn away, the granite of functional programming will be revealed underneath.”

“Computer Science is a foundational subject discipline, that like maths and natural science every child should have the opportunity to learn from primary school onward.”

Simon has just (March 2019) been appointed chair of the new National Centre for Computing Education.

Early Life

Simon Peyton-Jones was born in Simon’s Town, South Africa in 1958. He was apparently named after the town where his father, a naval officer, was based. The family returned to the UK when Simon was a few months old, and then moved to Trinidad when his father, having retired from the Navy, went to manage the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard. Simon was aged three at the time. They returned to the UK when Simon was eight and his father took up the role of director of the overseas side of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. Simon has three brothers and sisters.

Simon says that his influences were his parents and his time spent at boarding school from the age of eight. Despite a family history of Naval careers, and having a naval scholarship to attend Marlborough College, Simon realised that it wasn’t for him after a week’s training course at Dartmouth, he explains: “I came away realising the Navy was absolutely not for me.  I have a huge respect for people who work in the armed services, but it was quite clearly not suitable for a slightly geeky young man as I was then.”

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