John Henry Thompson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and spent part of his childhood there before moving to the UK and then New York, where he developed a fascination with programming in high school, teaching himself languages including FORTRAN and COBOL. He went on to earn a computer science degree from MIT, pairing it with a minor in visual arts.
After working on the EditDroid non-linear video editing system at Lucasfilm, Thompson joined Macromedia (then MacroMind) in 1987 as Chief Scientist. There he invented the Lingo programming language and XObjects for Macromedia Director, a multimedia authoring tool that let creative professionals without engineering backgrounds build interactive animations, games and CD-ROMs.
Lingo powered the explosion of interactive multimedia and Shockwave content through the 1990s and 2000s, and Thompson went on to teach at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, mentoring the next generation of technologists working at the intersection of art and code.
- Inventor of the Lingo programming language for Macromedia Director
- Co-created XObjects, extending Director's interactive capabilities
- Chief Scientist at Macromedia
- Longtime professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts' Interactive Telecommunications Program
- Pair your technical training with the art form you actually love.. His MIT degree combined computer science with visual arts.
- Build the tool that lets non-engineers create, not just engineers.. Lingo was designed specifically for artists and designers, not just programmers.
- Teach the next generation the intersection you pioneered.. He spent a decade as a professor mentoring students in art and technology together.