David Gries (born April 26, 1939 in

Flushing, Queens Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

mainly known for his books ''The Science of Programming'' (1981) and ''A Logical Approach to Discrete Math'' (1993, with

Fred B. Schneider Fred Barry Schneider (born December 7, 1953) is an American computer scientist, based at Cornell University, where he is the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Computer Science. He has published in numerous areas including science policy, cybersecuri ...

). He was Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the

Cornell University College of Engineering The College of Engineering is a division of Cornell University that was founded in 1870 as the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts. It is one of four private undergraduate colleges at Cornell that are not statutory colleges ...

from 2003–2011. His research interests include programming methodology and related areas such as

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, related

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

, and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

. His son, Paul Gries, has been a co-author of an introductory textbook to computer programming using the language

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and is a professor teaching Stream in the Department of Computer Science at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

Life

Gries earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(B.S.) from

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

in 1960. He spent the next two years working as a programmer-mathematician for the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, where he met his wife, Elaine. He earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

(M.S.) in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in 1963. While at Illinois, Gries worked with

Manfred Paul ''Manfred: A dramatic poem'' is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction. Byr ...

and Ruediger Wiehle to write a full

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

for the language

ALGOL 60 ALGOL 60 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1960'') is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It followed on from ALGOL 58 which had introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them, representing a k ...

for the

IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 ser ...

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

. He earned his '' Dr. rer. nat.'' in 1966 from the TH München, studying under

Friedrich L. Bauer Friedrich Ludwig "Fritz" Bauer (10 June 1924 – 26 March 2015) was a German pioneer of computer science and professor at the Technical University of Munich. Life Bauer earned his Abitur in 1942 and served in the Wehrmacht during World War ...

and

Josef Stoer Josef Stoer (born 21 June 1934) is a German mathematician specializing in numerical analysis and professor emeritus of the Institut für Mathematik of Universität Würzburg. He was born in Meschede, and earned his Ph.D. in 1961 at Johannes Gute ...

. Gries is member emeritus of

IFIP Working Group 2.3 IFIP Working Group 2.3 on Programming Methodology is a working group of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). Its main aim is to increase programmers’ ability to compose programs. To this end, WG2.3 provides an internatio ...

, whose aim is to increase programmers' ability to compose programs, and he edited ''Programming Methodology: a Collection of Articles by Members of IFIP WG2.3'', which highlights the work of this group in its first ten years. Gries was an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

from 1966–1969 and then became an associate professor at

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

. He spent the next 30 years there, including time as

chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

of the computer science department from 1982–1987. By the late 1970s, a survey had Cornell as the fourth-ranked computer science program in the nation, with nationally visible faculty such as

Juris Hartmanis Juris Hartmanis (July 5, 1928 – July 29, 2022) was a Latvian-born American computer scientist and computational theorist who, with Richard E. Stearns, received the 1993 ACM Turing Award "in recognition of their seminal paper which establis ...

Gerard Salton Gerard A. "Gerry" Salton (8 March 1927 in Nuremberg – 28 August 1995) was a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Salton was perhaps the leading computer scientist working in the field of information retrieval during his time, an ...

, Robert L. Constable, Richard W. Conway, and Gries. Many of them, like Gries, were especially known for their work in theory-related areas. Gries was an advocate of treating

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expec ...

in programming as a core computer science topic and teaching it to undergraduates, a stance that found large amounts of debate within the computer science education community. In any case, Gries' reputation as a teacher was such that around 700 students and fellow faculty members were in attendance for his final lecture, given to his "Programming and Data Structures" class, in May 2022. Cornell's computer science program maintained its prominence, placing sixth overall and third in theory in U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings for 2022. Gries had a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1984–1985. He spent 1999–2002 at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

and returned to Cornell in January 2003. He is author, co-author, or editor of seven textbooks and 75 research papers. , he lives in

Textbooks

Gries' 1971 work ''Compiler Construction for Digital Computers'' was the first textbook to be published on designing and implementing

language compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

s. It was also one of the first textbooks to be written and produced using computers, in this case

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

s input to a text-formatting program that ran on an

IBM System/360 Model 65 The IBM System/360 Model 65 is a member of the IBM System/360 family of computers. It was announced April 1965, and replaced two models, the Model 60 and Model 62, announced one year prior but never shipped. It was discontinued in March 1974. Mo ...

; the early technology used eventually resulted in the book having a somewhat dated appearance. ''Compiler Construction for Digital Computers'' sold well and went through more than twenty printings, although over time it would be eclipsed in renown by "the Dragon Book", Alfred V. Aho and

Jeffrey D. Ullman Jeffrey David Ullman (born November 22, 1942) is an American computer scientist and the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, at Stanford University. His textbooks on compilers (various editions are popularly known as the ...

's 1977 volume ''

Principles of Compiler Design ''Principles of Compiler Design'', by Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman, is a classic textbook on compilers for computer programming languages. Both of the authors won the 2020 Turing award for their work on compilers. It is often called the "green ...

''. Nonetheless, Dutch computer scientist

Dick Grune Dick Grune is a Dutch computer scientist and university lecturer best known for inventing and developing the first version of the Concurrent Versions System (CVS). Grune was involved in the construction of Algol 68 compilers in the 1970s and the A ...

has written of ''Compiler Construction for Digital Computers'' that "entire generations of compiler constructors have grown up with it and they have not regretted it." The textbook ''An Introduction to Programming: A Structured Approach Using PL/I and PL/C'' was co-written with his computer scientist college Richard W. Conway and published in 1973. It used the

PL/C PL/C is an instructional dialect of the programming language PL/I, developed at the Department of Computer Science of Cornell University in the early 1970s in an effort headed by Professor Richard W. Conway and graduate student Thomas R. Wilcox ...

dialect developed at Cornell and went through several editions and adaptations. It stressed the discipline of

structured programming Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed at improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of the structured control flow constructs of selection ( if/then/else) and repetition ( ...

throughout, becoming one of the most prominent textbooks to do so, and introduced considerations of

program correctness In theoretical computer science, an algorithm is correct with respect to a specification if it behaves as specified. Best explored is ''functional'' correctness, which refers to the input-output behavior of the algorithm (i.e., for each input it p ...

, becoming the first introductory textbook to do so. In 1981, Gries published ''The Science of Programming'', a textbook that covers

program verification In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal metho ...

. It presents

propositional calculus Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations b ...

and uses it to formalize the treatment of

precondition In computer programming, a precondition is a condition or predicate that must always be true just prior to the execution of some section of code or before an operation in a formal specification. If a precondition is violated, the effect of the s ...

postcondition In computer programming, a postcondition is a condition or predicate that must always be true just after the execution of some section of code or after an operation in a formal specification. Postconditions are sometimes tested using assertions wit ...

invariant Invariant and invariance may refer to: Computer science * Invariant (computer science), an expression whose value doesn't change during program execution ** Loop invariant, a property of a program loop that is true before (and after) each iteratio ...

s, and related entities, and then provides practical stratagems for program development via identifying those logical entities from a problem specification. A review in '' SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes'' found the book to be valuable in the logic and stratagem aspects, but too focused on low-level programming with no

abstract data types In computer science, an abstract data type (ADT) is a mathematical model for data types. An abstract data type is defined by its behavior (semantics) from the point of view of a '' user'', of the data, specifically in terms of possible values, ...

discussed other than the simple

array An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns. Things called an array include: {{TOC right Music * In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...

. Writing in ''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers with ...

'', computer scientist Jon Bentley said ''The Science of Programming'' was "an excellent introduction to the field" and said that professional programmers could benefit from studying it and using program verification techniques in their own projects. ''A Logical Approach to Discrete Math'' was co-authored with

and published in 1993. A paper from a faculty member at

Southwestern University Southwestern University (Southwestern or SU) is a private liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest college or university in Texas. Southwestern o ...

advocating teaching the subjects the book covered to first-year undergraduates and called it "an ideal text covering predicate calculus for use in programming." Similarly, a faculty member at

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and t ...

stated that, "My experience with ''A Logical Approach to Discrete Math'' convinced me that formal methods are easily mastered at the undergraduate level."

Selected works

* * * * *Gries, D., ed. (1979) ''Programming Methodology: a Collection of Articles by Members of IFIP WG2.3'' * * * * * *

Awards

*Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching from

Cornell Bowers CIS Cornell Computing and Information Science (officially the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science; also as Cornell Bowers CIS) is the umbrella name for the information science program at Cornell University, a private u ...

– inaugural recipient (2022) *Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year (2022) *Oldest paper in the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium Top Ten Papers of All Time (2019) * Amity Booker Prize, with Paul Gries (2016) *Honorary Doctor of Science,

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

, Oxford, Ohio (1999) *Honorary Doctor of Laws,

Daniel Webster College Daniel Webster College (DWC) was a private college in Nashua, New Hampshire. It operated from 1965 through 2017 and had a strong aeronautics focus during much of its history. It was a nonprofit college until 2009, when ITT Educational Services, ...

, Nashua, New Hampshire (1996) * (1995) *Weiss Presidential Fellow –among the first ten Fellows (1995) * Advisor of T.V. Raman, whose Ph.D. thesis won the annual (1995) *

IEEE-CS The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(1994) *Charter Fellow, ACM (1994) * CRA Distinguished Service Award (1991) *Fellow, AAAS (1990) * ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to CS Education (1991) *

AFIPS The American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) was an umbrella organization of professional societies established on May 10, 1961, and dissolved in 1990. Its mission was to advance knowledge in the field of information science, ...

Education Award (1986) *

(1983) *ACM Programming Systems and Languages Paper Award, with

Susan Owicki Susan Owicki is a computer scientist, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow, and one of the founding members of the Systers mailing list for women in computing. She changed careers in the early 2000s and became a licensed marriage ...

, for the "Verifying properties of parallel programs: an axiomatic approach" paper (1977) * Superior Accomplishment Award, U.S. Naval Weapons Lab, Dahlgren, Va. (1961)

References

External links