John Charles Reynolds (June 1, 1935 – April 28, 2013) was an American computer scientist.

Education and affiliations

John Reynolds studied at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

and then earned a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(Ph.D.) in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1961. He was a professor of

information science Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of informatio ...

at Syracuse University from 1970 to 1986. From then until his death he was a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

at Carnegie Mellon University. He also held visiting positions at Aarhus University (

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 ...

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, Microsoft Research (

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, UK) and

Queen Mary University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

Academic work

Reynolds's main research interest was in the area of

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 ...

design and associated

specification language A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the execu ...

s, especially concerning formal

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, linguistics and comp ...

. He invented the polymorphic lambda calculus (System F) and formulated the property of semantic

parametricity In programming language theory, parametricity is an abstract uniformity property enjoyed by parametrically polymorphic functions, which captures the intuition that all instances of a polymorphic function act the same way. Idea Consider this ex ...

; the same calculus was independently discovered by

Jean-Yves Girard Jean-Yves Girard (; born 1947) is a French logician working in proof theory. He is the research director (emeritus) at the mathematical institute of the University of Aix-Marseille, at Luminy. Biography Jean-Yves Girard is an alumnus of the ...

. He wrote a seminal paper on definitional interpreters, which clarified early work on

continuation In computer science, a continuation is an abstract representation of the control state of a computer program. A continuation implements ( reifies) the program control state, i.e. the continuation is a data structure that represents the computati ...

s and introduced the technique of defunctionalization. He applied category theory to programming language

. He defined the programming languages Gedanken and Forsythe, known for its use of

intersection type In type theory, an intersection type can be allocated to values that can be assigned both the type \sigma and the type \tau. This value can be given the intersection type \sigma \cap \tau in an intersection type system. Generally, if the ranges o ...

s. He worked on a separation logic to describe and reason about shared mutable data structures. Reynolds created an elegant, idealized formulation of the programming language

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

, which exhibits ALGOL's syntactic and semantic purity, and is used in programming language research. It also made a convincing methodologic argument regarding the suitability of local effects in the context of

call-by-name In a programming language, an evaluation strategy is a set of rules for evaluating expressions. The term is often used to refer to the more specific notion of a ''parameter-passing strategy'' that defines the kind of value that is passed to the f ...

languages, in contrast with the global effects used by

call-by-value In a programming language, an evaluation strategy is a set of rules for evaluating expressions. The term is often used to refer to the more specific notion of a ''parameter-passing strategy'' that defines the kind of value that is passed to the f ...

languages such as ML. The conceptual integrity of the language made it one of the main objects of semantic research, along with Programming Computable Functions (PCF) and ML. He was an editor of journals such as the ''

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 ...

'' and the ''

Journal of the ACM The ''Journal of the ACM'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering computer science in general, especially theoretical aspects. It is an official journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. Its current editor-in-chief is Venkatesan ...

''. In 2001, he was appointed a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He won the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Language Achievement Award in 2003, and the

Lovelace Medal The Lovelace Medal was established by the British Computer Society in 1998, and is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the understanding or advancement of computing. It is the top award in computing in the UK. Awar ...

from the British Computer Society in 2010.

Selected publications

;Books
''The Craft of Programming''
Prentice Hall International, 1981. . * ''Theories of Programming Languages'',

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

, 1998. . ;Articles * * * *

References

External links

*
Curriculum Vitae
* *
Program Verification and Semantics: Further Work
(London, 2004) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, John C. 1935 births 2013 deaths Harvard University alumni Purdue University alumni American computer scientists Formal methods people Programming language researchers Academics of Imperial College London Academics of Queen Mary University of London Academics of the University of Edinburgh Syracuse University faculty Carnegie Mellon University faculty Academic journal editors Microsoft employees Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery

Education and affiliations

Academic work

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links