“Dr. Cox was a computer scientist known mostly for creating the Objective – C programming language with his business partner, Tom Love, and for his work in software engineering (specifically software reuse) and software componentry.”
Brad Cox grew up on a South Carolina dairy farm and earned a PhD in mathematical biology. Then he bolted Smalltalk-style messages onto C. NeXT picked it up, Apple inherited it, and a generation of iPhone apps ran on his language. The news reached most programmers through a funeral home notice.