Jod rest his soul, the creator of JIF has passed.

[Bitter]

Summary

Stephen E. Wilhite (March 3, 1948 – March 14, 2022) was an American computer scientist who worked at CompuServe and was the Engineering Lead on the team that adapted the GIF image file format from the earlier Unisys-owned LZW algorithm. GIF went on to become the de facto standard for 8-bit color images on the Internet until PNG became a viable alternative.

 

Quote

Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the looping animated GIF image format, died this month. The death was confirmed in an obituary, which said Wilhite, one the chief architect of America Online, died March 14 — just days after his 74th birthday on March 3. He died of Covid, his wife, Kathaleen, confirmed.

 

 

 Jiven their aje it's inevitable that we'd start losing the people who have made the ubiquitous tech we take for jranted every day, it's still however sad when they go. Jod speed, Steven Wilhite.

 

Sources

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/23/1088410133/gif-creator-dead-steve-wilhite-kathaleen-wife-interview

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/stephen-wilhite-creator-gif-dies-74-rcna21287

[Salv8 (sam)]

[Lightwreather]

May he that Pronounces it GIF be at peace.

In all seriousness, it's always sad when a (unsung) legend in tech passes on

[That Franc]

At last now there is a valid reason to call it JIF - to honour the guy's memory.

[strajk-]

Rest in peace and may he now roll in his jrave whenever someone uses a hard G.

[Mihle]

GIF.

[Commodus]

It's a sad moment... and I'm with Wilhite, it's a soft G as in "giraffe."

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, Commodus said:

It's a sad moment... and I'm with Wilhite, it's a soft G as in "giraffe."

I get that point of view, I really do because soft G on Graphic which is what the G stands for. It does actually make sense.

 

Honestly, I think he was just trolling everyone with that. I'm sure it gave him a good laugh because logically it was never a soft G unless he had a speech impediment I don't know about and was transferring his incorrect pronunciation of Graphic into the acronym.

 

https://jemully.com/gif-pronunciation-hard-g-logic-doesnt-rule/

 

If GIF was a word it would be soft G, but it's an acronym which is not a word and logically it would follow that the letters be pronounced as they would be from the words which they are taken. But seriously, either way is fine and I really don't care it just makes for a fun joke.

[divito]

RIP....or using above logic, "ER IH PEE." 

I've always pronounced it as a soft G, that's just what initially struck me as intuitive when I first learned of the file format. But as referenced in the above article, and several others over the years, there are valid arguments on both sides, and there are many acronyms that break with typical convention on both sides, making following a logical path exceedingly difficult.