Founder of Pascal: nicklath Witz

From: csdn

Most people who have studied computers know the famous Formula "algorithm + Data Structure = Program". The winner of the Turing Award in 1984 proposed this formula, niklaus Wirth, a Swiss computer scientist ). So far, he has been the only Swiss scholar to receive the Turing Award.

Witz was born in Winterthur in northern Switzerland in February 15, 1934. He began to use his mind from an early age. His biggest hobby is to assemble aircraft models. After obtaining a bachelor's degree from the Zurich Institute of Technology in 1958, he went to Levi University in Canada for further studies and then went to the University of California at Berkeley for a doctorate. From the late 1950s s to the early 1960s S, Witz designed the first language, Euler. Euler's language is not fully practical, but academic, it creates a good foundation for compiler system design. Next, Witz defined another language at Stanford University to describe the algol w compiler, which gave birth to the new language-pl360. The pl360 was developed as an auxiliary tool, but was unexpectedly applied in many places. The success of Algol W and pl360 laid the role of Witz as a programming language expert.

After becoming famous, he refused to retain Stanford University. In 1967, he returned to his home country. He first served at Zurich University and transferred to his alma mater Zurich Institute of Technology the next year. Here, he successfully designed the PASCAL Language on cdc6000. Interestingly, the original intention of Witz to develop Pascal is to have a language suitable for teaching, without considering commercial purposes. Pascal has been widely used since it is concise and clear, and because it is especially suitable for Computer Systems Composed of microprocessor. Prior to the advent of C language, Pascal became one of the most popular languages. Phillipe Kahn, A wtz student, has sold more than 1 million Pascal copies in California, with an effect.

In 1971, based on its own development programming language and programming experience, Witz first proposed the concept of "Structured Programming" (structured programming. This structured program design method proposed by Witz is also known as the "top-down" or "gradually improving" method. It has triggered a revolution in the field of program design and has become a standard, it has been widely used, especially in the software engineering developed later. Pascal's success and the great impact of structured programming design did not stop Witz's creative research and development work. In the middle of the 1970 s, in order to adapt to the needs of concurrent program design, Witz successfully developed a widely used modula language. Later, based on alto's experience, he also designed and developed the Lilith personal computer system. Witz has many academic works, including the introduction to system program design, algorithm + Data Structure = program, Algorithm and data structure, Pascal user manual and report: ISO Pascal standards and other books. In addition to the Turing Award from the American Computer Manufacturers Association (ACM), he also received another award from ACM: Outstanding Contribution to computer science education.