# In Memoriam: Tim Peters 1952–2026

**URL:** <https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028>\
**Category:** Core Development\
**Created:** [November 11, 2026, 5:36am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028 "2026-11-11T05:36:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![aclark](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/aclark/32/21922_2.png) [@aclark](https://discuss.python.org/u/aclark)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/23 "2026-11-11T16:04:56Z")

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RIP Tim.

We never met, but I was most aware of Tim as the author of the Zen of Python, his early contributions to Python and his prolific online correspondence.

I was so enamored with the Zen of Python that in 2012 I made a Zope version, updated recently by Claude: [other/src/other/\_\_init\_\_.py at main · aclark4life/other · GitHub](https://github.com/aclark4life/other/blob/main/src/other/ __init__.py)

So long, and thank you Tim. ❤

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**Author:** ![pablogsal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/pablogsal/32/32246_2.png) [@pablogsal](https://discuss.python.org/u/pablogsal)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/24 "2026-11-11T17:54:02Z")

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Oh man, this is really sad news ☹

I have always considered it an honor and a privilege to learn from Tim. I was lucky enough that Tim Peters reviewd my code much before I had any business having my code be reviewed by Tim peters. And I learned so much! A big part of what I know about the garbage collector comes from reading his code and from him reviewing mine when I refactored it long time ago. He would go through my patches with a level of care and patience that I still find hard to believe and somehow he always explained things in a way that made you feel smart instead of slow.

I still remember fondly when we worked together on graphlib is a good example. I came with a topological sort and he went through round after round of review with me until it was actually really good. He was also super funny. When I told him I did my PhD in theoretical physics he told me he had just found out that Einstein was a real person, because he always thought he was a “theoretical” physicist. When I complained about floating point errors blowing up my simulations he told me to try interval arithmetic, so every result would be guaranteed to be between -inf and +inf 🙂

We spent a lot of emails just sharing floating point tricks with each other and those chats brightened some very hard days for me.

Thanks a lot for everything, Tim. For every review, for every joke and for every chat. It was always a pleasure and a privilege. ❤

RIP

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**Author:** ![DavidQMertz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/davidqmertz/32/38964_2.png) [@DavidQMertz](https://discuss.python.org/u/DavidQMertz)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 5:58pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/25 "2026-11-11T17:58:41Z")

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Like so many others here, my life will be enormously diminished by Tim’s absence. Even though my relationship with Timmy was only over wires, it was over the course of 25+ years, and both in groups, and frequently one-to-one. His intelligence—and his compassion—was so important at so many points in my life.

I know that I’m violating my ongoing ban that arose from the stupid kerfuffle that also led to Tim’s temporary ban from Discourse. But I want to share my love and respect for Tim with fellow Pythonistas before I go away again.

Since I first started reading comp.lang.python in 2000, Tim was a defining voice of Python, and a huge part of what attracted me to Python. Brett famously commented many years ago that he _came for the language, but stayed for the community_ … for me it was the reverse, I came for the community, and stayed for the language. That community was in very large measure defined by Uncle Timmy’s kindness and wit.

I think Tim is quoted in all of the Python books I’ve written. It’s hard to avoid quoting the Zen of Python, after all. But it’s not limited to that. In 2003, I included this exchange as something deeply illustrative of the joy of Python’s community at its best:

* * *

Python luminary and erstwhile professor of numeric computing Alex Martelli  
commented in 2001 (on ‘\<comp.lang.python\>’):

```markdown
Anybody who thinks he knows what he's doing when floating
point is involved IS either naive, or Tim Peters (well, it
COULD be W. Kahan I guess, but I don't think he writes here).

```

Fellow Python guru Tim Peters observed:

```markdown
I find it's possible to be both (wink). But *nothing* about
fp comes easily to anyone, and even Kahan works his butt off
to come up with the amazing things that he does.

```

* * *

I had the honor of serving on the PSF board with Tim, and he was always the best of us, understanding community as much as he did programming and mathematical concepts.

Over the years, I’ve had such interesting and deep conversations with Tim. We were both a bit wonkish about voting theory, which led to the Approval Voting system PSF uses, but also went in many interesting directions in discussing IRV versus other tabulation systems. IRV, misleadingly called “ranked choice voting” here in Maine where I now live, is “the worst system other than plurality” as Tim described it; a comment I frequently crib.

When I became curious about [Unum/Posit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_(number_format)) arithmetic in comparison with IEEE-754 FP, Tim was the first and most fruitful interlocutor I sought out.

My ridicuously compact [“library”](https://github.com/DavidMertz/RLE) for run-length encoding is basically a conversation with Tim:

```python
def rle_encode(it):
    return ((k, len(list(g))) for k, g in groupby(it))

def rle_decode(it):
    return chain.from_iterable(repeat(x, n) for x, n in it)

```

This is a silly footnote, but so many of the footnotes in my life have often needed a citation to Timmy.

* * *

It wasn’t only the technical topics though. Mostly from FB posts and conversations, but then also spilling into private emails, I enjoyed so much his contributions to political discussions of democracy, civil liberties, privacy, governance and imperialism. I was often maddened by his centrism, and he was perhaps troubled by my ultra-leftism, but whatever the details of those talks his kindness always shone through.

I had somewhat noticed an absence over the last few months of Tim’s comments on my largely political posts to FB; but the absence was a murmur not a din. Since I learned last night of his death, I feel like every comment thread where he is missing will come with a sigh and a tear.

–David

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**Author:** ![dg-pb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/dg-pb/32/16248_2.png) [@dg-pb](https://discuss.python.org/u/dg-pb)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 8:05pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/26 "2026-11-11T20:05:00Z")

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“beautiful is better than ugly” is the part of Zen which I took most literally.

And Tim’s output of beauty was phenomenal in **everything** that he did.

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**Author:** ![Stanfromireland](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/stanfromireland/32/10102_2.png) [@Stanfromireland](https://discuss.python.org/u/Stanfromireland)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 8:13pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/27 "2026-11-11T20:13:20Z")

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I’m devastated by this news. I am deeply saddened, and one of my greatest regrets is that I never had the chance to meet Tim in person.

Over the years, I had the privilege of exchanging many emails with him on a wide variety of topics. Every exchange was a joy. Tim was an extraordinary mind, and, a truly wonderful human being. He was always incredibly generous with his time and knowledge, thoughtful, kind, humble, and blessed with a remarkable sense of humor. 😉

I feel incredibly fortunate to have known him, even if only through words on a screen.

What a tremendous loss, not just for Python, but for all of us who had the privilege of crossing paths with him.

Rest in peace, Tim. You will be deeply missed.

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**Author:** ![dyoo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/dyoo/32/38982_2.png) [@dyoo](https://discuss.python.org/u/dyoo)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 8:20pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/28 "2026-11-11T20:20:31Z")

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Thank you Tim Peters. You were one of my north stars, and I hope to continue to be led by your example.

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**Author:** ![garyrob](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/garyrob/32/38987_2.png) [@garyrob](https://discuss.python.org/u/garyrob)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 9:29pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/29 "2026-11-11T21:29:21Z")

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I am very sad to hear of Tim’s passing. A really nice guy, who was heavily involved with the SpamBayes project when I was. He wrote the following code for it: [A Statistical Approach to the Spam Problem](https://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/articles/064/6467/6467s2.html)

The reason that’s especially interesting is that I was using an AI to write something that needed that functionality, and it spewed out that same Python code, which I recognized immediately. It was slightly modified with respect to naming and comments because, I assume, it was stored slightly imperfectly in the model’s weights.

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**Author:** ![gstein](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/gstein/32/38993_2.png) [@gstein](https://discuss.python.org/u/gstein)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 10:21pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/30 "2026-11-11T22:21:35Z")

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I was there! So sad to hear that Tim has left us. I remember those lunches at PF Chang’s. … Tim would eat a full entree, and then eat a piece of that 9-layer chocolate cake the size of your head. It was astonishing. … Good times.

But well before that, I recall emailing with Tim 30 years ago. He’s been a fixture of the Python community, and a devious coder. He was a stickler for Guido’s desire to keep the code clear, yet he still found ways to tuck in some incredible improvements.

And we will never forget his sign-off flourishes, on his emails.

RIP, Tim.

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**Author:** ![thomas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/thomas/32/5492_2.png) [@thomas](https://discuss.python.org/u/thomas)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 12:20am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/31 "2026-11-12T00:20:23Z")

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> [@guido](#):
>
> Tim really set the tone for early core development, never outright dismissing people and explaining in detail why things could or couldn’t work.

I remember him being such a guiding presence on comp.lang.python / [python-list@python.org](mailto:python-list@python.org), when I joined it almost three decades ago. I had had some exposure to, shall we say, less welcoming communities, and Tim really showed how it should be done instead. He always took the time to explain why something wouldn’t work, or why some approach, while _theoretically_ better, in practice wouldn’t actually be beneficial. He always evaluated code and algorithms not just for their raw efficiency but also the maintainability, readability and comprehensibility, and he rarely outright closed the door on anything. It didn’t matter if it was a complex change deep in the interpreter, new grammar or a new module, or dealing with non-profit governance and tax law. He would often couch his conclusions – which he always brought as _his_ conclusions, not absolute decisions, even for areas everyone considered _his_ – with caveats that he might be wrong, or things might change in the future. Even the most ridiculous ideas were often not completely dismissed. I think Tim’s most firm dismissal was “ **_I’m_** not going to spend any time on it”.

I remember having a conversation with Tim once, early on… He’d responded to some obvious (to me) troll who made claims about how Python could be so much better if only it did things more like some other language, probably Perl given the time frame. Tim’s post was much longer than the original poster’s, with a long explanation going into a lot of technical and design detail, taking the proposal quite seriously even though it was on its face clearly unworkable. I asked him if he hadn’t realized the poster was just trolling, because it felt like he was just wasting his time. Tim responded that yeah, he was fully aware that was likely the case, but he wasn’t _certain_, so he wasn’t going to just dismiss it, and the post was much more for the benefit of other readers. Making clear people understood why it wouldn’t work, and showing them what they had to consider when thinking about such things. Of course it also showed them, and me, how to deal with that particular kind of troll: smother them in kindness. Many people took that to heart. Python and its community would not be the same if he hadn’t been around.

My favourite memory, I think, is from an early PyCon (US) sprint, where he worked on porting the address\_in\_range check in obmalloc to support amd64 (now x86\_64), and I was one of the few people there with access to such a machine. Tim was looking over my shoulder as I fired up gdb, set a breakpoint at the place he wanted, and then printed a pointer. He barked out a laugh and said “Look at that, oh ex seven eff eff eff eff eff eff eff and then a real pointer, what a waste, ridiculous!” – he still managed to fix it, though, as we all knew 32-bit x86 would eventually be replaced.

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**Author:** ![irvan-putra](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/irvan-putra/32/23051_2.png) [@irvan-putra](https://discuss.python.org/u/irvan-putra)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/32 "2026-11-12T05:32:23Z")

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I only interact with Tim in this forum for few posts, and i am sad that I won’t be able to interact with him again. His posts has been insightful for me.

I also just now realize Tim is the one for timsort, which means i have been inspired by him years ago, and more than a decade.

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**Author:** ![vstinner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/vstinner/32/15130_2.png) [@vstinner](https://discuss.python.org/u/vstinner)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 11:31am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/33 "2026-11-12T11:31:33Z")

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Oh no, that’s a very sad news 😪

When I started contributing to Python in 2010, Tim was less active in Python. But in last 5-10 years, Tim was always around and share its great knowledge of the Python language and in mathematics. I often ask him to review changes related to maths and floating point. It is a great loss for the Python project. Thanks Tim for your dedication on making Python a better language!

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**Author:** ![tveyben](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/tveyben/32/39040_2.png) [@tveyben](https://discuss.python.org/u/tveyben)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 12:22pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/34 "2026-11-12T12:22:21Z")

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The ‘Zen of python’ is something I present to people for so much more than sw development as it’s a really good ‘concept’ to use.

It’s very touching to now read the story about how it came along and especially about the man who invented it (or ‘cornered it’ I believe it’s called)

I hope I’ll get an opportunity to work with someone with these kind characteristics one day, that would be awesome (I’m still waiting 😉

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**Author:** ![amk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/amk/32/20508_2.png) [@amk](https://discuss.python.org/u/amk)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/35 "2026-11-12T14:24:22Z")

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I’ll miss Tim’s gravelly-voiced presence, his aphorism-heavy online persona, and his longer writing that were usually engrossing deep dives.

People may enjoy revisiting his introduction to [the Searching and Sorting chapter](https://ia803202.us.archive.org/31/items/python_ebooks_2020/Python_Cookbook%2C_2nd_Edition_%282005%29.pdf) of the second edition of the Python Cookbook. In his opening paragraph he has a parenthetical aside “we read Knuth so you don’t have to”, a line that’s stuck with me. Later in the introduction, he notes “I made a standing offer to buy dinner for anyone who could code a faster Python sort. Alas, I ate alone.”

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**Author:** ![LeroyK111](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/leroyk111/32/39046_2.png) [@LeroyK111](https://discuss.python.org/u/LeroyK111)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 2:51pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/36 "2026-11-12T14:51:39Z")

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rip，感谢您的贡献，能够作出如此简洁的编程语言。

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**Author:** ![AnnaRaven](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/annaraven/32/20463_2.png) [@AnnaRaven](https://discuss.python.org/u/AnnaRaven)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 7:47pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-2026/110028/37 "2026-11-12T19:47:55Z")

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The _Zen of Python_ was actually so influential to Alex Martelli and I that we made it our entrance reading for our wedding. And we live by it to this day, especially:

```python
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.

```

Alex and I just celebrated our 22nd anniversary, so it seems to have worked. (wink)

I don’t think I ever had the privilege to meet Tim in person, but I know how much his posts influenced the kindest community I’d ever encountered. May his spirit live on in Python and in the Python Community.

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