Larry Tesler

Larry Tesler
Fields	human–computer interaction
Alma mater	Stanford University
Website www.nomodes.com

Lawrence Gordon Tesler (born April 24, 1945) is a computer scientist who works in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.

Tesler has a strong preference for modeless software, in which a user's action has a consistent effect, rather than changing its meaning depending on previous actions, as in the vi text editor. His Gypsy editor, for example, provided a 'click and type' interface in which the user could, at any time, enter text at the current insertion point, or click where the insertion point should be repositioned. Previously, most editors used the keyboard to enter text or to issue commands, depending on the current mode. To promote his preference, as of 2010, Tesler equipped his Subaru automobile with a personalized California license plate with the license number "NO MODES". Along with others, he has also been using the phrase "Don't Mode Me In" for years, as a rally cry to eliminate or reduce modes.

Tesler grew up in New York City and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1961. He went on to Stanford University, where he studied computer science in the 1960s, and worked for a time at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. With Horace Enea, he designed Compel, an early single assignment language. This functional programming language was intended to make concurrent processing more natural and was used to introduce programming concepts to beginners.

In the late 60s, he got involved in the Midpeninsula Free University, where he delivered classes about topics like How to end the IBM Monopoly, Computers Now and Procrastination. From 1973 to 1980, he worked at Xerox PARC, where, among other things, he worked on the Gypsy word processor and Smalltalk. Copy and paste was first implemented in 1973-1976 by Tesler and Tim Mott, while they were working on Gypsy for Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

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