Hampton Lintorn-Catlin

Hampton Lintorn-Catlin ( Catlin; born 1982)[1] is an American computer programmer, programming language inventor, gay rights advocate, and author, best known as the creator of the Sass and Haml markup languages. Hampton was a Vice President of Engineering at Rent the Runway, and has previously held similar roles at Moovweb, Thriveworks, and at the Wikimedia Foundation.

Hampton Lintorn-Catlin
Headshot of Hampton Lintorn-Catlin
Lintorn-Catlin in 2018
Born
Hampton Catlin

1982 (age 41–42)
Occupations
  • Computer programmer
  • gay rights advocate
  • author
Known forCreating the Sass and Haml markup languages
PartnerMichael Lintorn-Catlin

Creations

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Haml

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He created a markup language called Haml which he intended to be a radically different design for inline page templating systems like eRuby in Ruby. Since its initial release in 2006, Haml has been ported to several other languages and has been the design inspiration for other languages like Slim. [2] It's the second most popular templating language for the Ruby on Rails framework.[3]

Sass

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In 2007, Lintorn-Catlin created a style sheet language to expand on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), used to describe presentation semantics of web pages. Catlin continued to work on Sass with co-designer Natalie Weizenbaum through 2008.[4][5] Sass is now bundled as part of Rails.[6]

In 2011, he co-wrote with his husband the book Pragmatic Guide to Sass, published through The Pragmatic Bookshelf.[7][8]

Wikipedia Mobile

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Lintorn-Catlin wrote several early applications for iOS and other mobile platforms, including Dictionary!, a popular dictionary application,[9] and a Wikipedia browsing client which was later purchased by the Wikimedia Foundation.[10] He was subsequently hired by Wikimedia[11] and given the role as mobile development lead for the Foundation, launching the official mobile website in June 2009. The backend for the site was developed using Ruby and the Merb framework.[12][11]

Personal life

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Catlin was born on September 2, 1982, in Jacksonville, Florida, United States.[1] He currently resides in New York with his husband and collaborator, Michael Lintorn-Catlin.[13]

The couple made headlines in late March 2014 for removing a simple puzzle game they had built together from the Mozilla Marketplace after Brendan Eich was appointed CEO of Mozilla.[14] They called for a boycott of Mozilla, pledging "We will continue our boycott until Brendan Eich is completely removed from any day to day activities at Mozilla...."[15] Eich had previously been the center of controversy surrounding his support for Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that banned marriage equality in California, which was re-ignited by his promotion to CEO.[16][17] After a large public outcry and several Mozilla Foundation employees publicly calling for him to step down, Eich voluntarily stepped down only a week after taking his new position.[18] When asked if he'd donate again, Eich responded "I don't want to answer hypotheticals."[19] In a follow-up blog post, Catlin explained meeting Eich to find middle ground and expressing dismay at the response, calling the outcome a "sad victory".[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Carneiro, Cloves Jr.; Catlin, Hampton; Hardy, Jeffrey Allan (August 3, 2007). Beginning Rails: From Novice to Professional. Apress. ISBN 9781590596869. Archived from the original on May 13, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  2. ^ "Haml". Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
  3. ^ "The Ruby Toolbox". Archived from the original on February 23, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
  4. ^ "The Sass Team". sass-lang.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  5. ^ Cooper, Martin. "Hampton Catlin on building Sass". .net. Future Publishing. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  6. ^ Cooper, Peter. "Rails 3.1 Adopts CoffeeScript, jQuery, Sass and.. Controversy". Ruby inside. Archived from the original on August 28, 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  7. ^ Catlin, Hampton; Catlin, Michael Lintorn (2012). Pragmatic Guide to Sass. Pragmatic Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1934356845.
  8. ^ "Hampton Catlin". hamptoncatlin.com. Archived from the original on September 14, 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  9. ^ "Hampton Catlin". O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on July 25, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  10. ^ "Meet the merbists: Hampton Catlin". Merbist. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  11. ^ a b Cooper, Peter. "Wikipedia Needs Rubyists to Flesh Out Mobile Vision". Ruby inside. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  12. ^ "Wikimedia Mobile is Officially Launched". Wikimedia Foundation. June 30, 2009. Archived from the original on March 21, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  13. ^ Fagioli, Brian (March 25, 2014). "New Mozilla CEO is allegedly anti-gay marriage -- Firefox developers boycott". Beta News. Archived from the original on March 30, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  14. ^ Williams, Lauren C. "LGBT Developers Boycott Firefox After Anti-Gay CEO Takes Office". Think Progress. Archived from the original on March 30, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  15. ^ Catlin, Hampton. "Goodbye, Firefox Marketplace". Rarebit. Archived from the original on March 24, 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  16. ^ Quinn, Michelle. "Mozilla In Twitter-Storm Over New CEO's Support Of California's Anti-Gay Marriage Measure". Silicon Beat. Archived from the original on March 31, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  17. ^ Crook1, Jordan (March 29, 2014). "After Supporting Prop 8, New CEO Brendan Eich Comes Under Fire From Mozilla Employees". Tech News. Archived from the original on December 23, 2019. Retrieved March 31, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Drake, Sarah. "Mozilla workers take to Twitter to call for CEO Eich's resignation". Upstart Business Journal. Archived from the original on April 1, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  19. ^ Shankland, Stephen. "Exclusive: Mozilla CEO Eich says gay-marriage firestorm could hurt Firefox (Q&A)". CNet. Archived from the original on August 18, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
  20. ^ Catlin, Hampton. "A Sad 'Victory'". Archived from the original on August 25, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
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