Lars Bak (born 1965) is a Danish

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

. He is known as a

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 Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

expert and for his work on

virtual machines In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hard ...

. He previously worked for

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, having contributed to the Chrome browser by developing the

V8 JavaScript engine V8 is a free and open-source JavaScript engine developed by the Chromium Project for Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers. The project’s creator is Lars Bak. The first version of the V8 engine was released at the same time as the first v ...

Professional life

Bak studied at

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

in Denmark, receiving an MS degree in

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 Applied science, practical discipli ...

in 1988 after which he became active in designing and implementing object-oriented

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...

s. He has been awarded the 2018 Senior

Dahl–Nygaard Prize The Dahl–Nygaard Prize is awarded annually to a senior researcher with outstanding career contributions and a younger researcher who has demonstrated great potential. The senior prize is recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes in the are ...

Virtual machines

After participating in the design and implementation of the

BETA Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

Mjølner System, in 1991 he joined the Self group at

Sun Microsystems Laboratories Oracle Labs (formerly Sun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs) is a research and development branch of Oracle Corporation. The labs were created when Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems. Sun Labs was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland and R ...

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. During his time there, he developed a programming environment for

Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...

and added several enhancements to the virtual machine. In 1994, he joined

LongView Technologies Strongtalk is a Smalltalk environment with optional static typing support. Strongtalk can make some compile time checks, and offer ''stronger'' type safety guarantees; this is the source of its name. It is non-commercial, though it was originall ...

LLC, where he designed and implemented high performance virtual machines for both

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Ka ...

and

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. After Sun Microsystems acquired LongView in 1997, Bak became engineering manager and technical lead in the HotSpot team at Sun's Java Software Division where he developed a high-performance

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...

. In 2002, after returning to Aarhus, Denmark, Bak founded OOVM, a company which developed software for mobile phones. In 2004, he sold it to a Swiss company,

Esmertec Myriad Group AG is a Swiss software company in the mobile communications sector. Myriad delivers consumer applications, social media and messaging solutions, and embedded software to OEM's, mobile operators and pay TV providers. Myriad operates t ...

. In 2004, Bak joined Google to work on the Chrome browser. He did not return to the

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 ...

, preferring to work in Denmark where his daughters were also receiving their education. With a team of 12 engineers, Bak coordinated the development of the V8 JavaScript interpreter for Chrome, named after the

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...

. Bak co-developed the

Dart Dart or DART may refer to: * Dart, the equipment in the game of darts Arts, entertainment and media * Dart (comics), an Image Comics superhero * Dart, a character from ''G.I. Joe'' * Dart, a ''Thomas & Friends'' railway engine character * Dar ...

programming language presented at the 2011 Goto conference in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

, Denmark. In 2017, Bak left Google and soon afterward co-founded a startup with Kasper Lund called Toit, which is building a new programming language called Toit and a platform for

Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

systems.

Patents

Bak holds 18 U.S. software patents in the field of

s programming. In 2010, after

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

bought

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

and with Lars Bak working for Google, Oracle sued Google for infringing on several software patents and amongst them was the "Interpreting Functions Utilizing a Hybrid of Virtual and Native Machine Instructions" patent filed by Lars Bak et al.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bak, Lars Living people Danish computer programmers Google employees Sun Microsystems people People from Aarhus 1965 births Dahl–Nygaard Prize