Anders Hejlsberg (, born 2 December 1960) is a

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software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

who co-designed several

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s and development tools. He was the original author of

Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally developed by Anders Hejlsberg at ...

and the chief architect of Delphi. He currently works for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

as the lead architect of C# and core developer on

TypeScript TypeScript is a free and open source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. It is designed for the development of large app ...

Early life

Hejlsberg was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

, and studied Electrical Engineering at the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

. While at the university in 1980, he began writing programs for the

Nascom The Nascom 1 and 2 were single-board computer kits issued in the United Kingdom in 1977 and 1979, respectively, based on the Zilog Z80 and including a keyboard and video interface, a serial port that could be used to store data on a tape cassette ...

microcomputer, including a Pascal compiler which was initially marketed as the ''Blue Label Software Pascal'' for the Nascom-2. However, he soon rewrote it for CP/M and

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

, marketing it first as ''Compas Pascal'' and later as ''PolyPascal''. Later the product was licensed to Borland, and integrated into an IDE to become the

system. Turbo Pascal competed with PolyPascal. The compiler itself was largely inspired by the "Tiny Pascal" compiler in

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally ...

's "''

Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs ''Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs'' is a 1976 book written by Niklaus Wirth covering some of the fundamental topics of computer programming, particularly that algorithms and data structures are inherently related. For example, if one has a ...

''", one of the most influential computer science books of the time.

At Borland

In Borland's hands, Turbo Pascal became one of the most commercially successful Pascal compilers. Hejlsberg remained with PolyData until the company came under financial stress and in 1989 he moved to California to become Chief Engineer at Borland. During this time he developed Turbo Pascal further and became the chief architect for the team that produced

Borland Delphi Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, ...

, which replaced Turbo Pascal.

At Microsoft

In 1996, Hejlsberg left Borland and joined

. One of his first achievements was the J++ programming language and the Windows Foundation Classes; he also became a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and Technical Fellow. Since 2000, he has been the lead architect of the team developing the C# language. In 2012 Hejlsberg announced a new Microsoft project,

, a superset of

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

Awards

Hejlsberg received the 2001

Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award The Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award was an annual prize given to individuals who, in the opinion of the editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal, "made significant contributions to the advancement of software development." The Excellence in Program ...

for his work on Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# and the Microsoft

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

. Together with

Shon Katzenberger Shon may refer to: * Shon (given name) * Shon (Korean surname) * ''Shon the Piper'', a 1913 American silent short film * a character in the ancient Indian epic ''Mahabharata'' See also * ''Schön! ''Schön!'' is an English-language fashion mag ...

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Todd Proebsting Todd or Todds may refer to: Places ;Australia: * Todd River, an ephemeral river ;United States: * Todd Valley, California, also known as Todd, an unincorporated community * Todd, Missouri, a ghost town * Todd, North Carolina, an unincorporate ...

, Erik Meijer, Peter Hallam, and Peter Sollich, Anders was awarded a Technical Recognition Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement for their work on the C# language in 2007.

References

Bibliography

Published works

* ''The C# Programming Language, 2nd edition'',

Addison-Wesley Professional Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through ...

, , 2006-06-09 * ''The C# Programming Language, 3rd edition'', Addison-Wesley Professional, , 2008-10-18 * ''The C# Programming Language, 4th edition'', Addison-Wesley Professional, , , October 2010

External links

JavaWorld of 1997 writes how Hejlsberg went to Microsoft:
Microsoft offered Anders Hejlsberg a signing bonus of and stock options. Microsoft doubled the bonus to after Borland made a counter-offer. Hejlsberg left Borland in October 1996.

* ttp://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/oreilly/windows/news/hejlsberg_0800.html Deep Inside C#: An Interview with Microsoft Chief Architect Anders Hejlsberg
C#: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Video interview at channel9

Computerworld Interview with Anders on C#

Videos