Martin Richards (born 21 July 1940) is a British

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 ...

known for his development of the

BCPL BCPL ("Basic Combined Programming Language") is a procedural, imperative, and structured programming language. Originally intended for writing compilers for other languages, BCPL is no longer in common use. However, its influence is still ...

programming language which is both part of early research into portable software, and the ancestor of the B programming language invented by Ken Thompson in early versions of Unix and which

Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...

in turn used as the basis of his widely used

C programming language ''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...

Education

Richards studied

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 ...

as an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge and took the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science. His

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

was on programming language design and implementation. He was a senior

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory until his retirement in 2007.

Research

In addition to BCPL Richards' work includes the development of the TRIPOS portable operating system. He was awarded the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award in 2003 for "pioneering system software portability through the programming language BCPL". Richards is a fellow of St Johns College at the University of Cambridge.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Martin Living people Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge History of computing in the United Kingdom Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Programming language designers 1940 births