Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss

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 ...

. He has 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, including

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Fren ...

, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

, generally recognized as the highest distinction 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 ...

, for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages.

Biography

Wirth was born in

Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria), La ...

, Switzerland, in 1934. In 1959, he earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in

electronic engineering Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...

from the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

(ETH Zürich). In 1960, he earned a Master of Science (MSc) from

Université Laval Université Laval is a public research university in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The university was founded by royal charter issued by Queen Victoria in 1852, with roots in the founding of the Séminaire de Québec in 1663 by François de Montmo ...

, Canada. Then in 1963, he was awarded a PhD in

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) is an academic program at many universities which comprises scientific and engineering aspects of computing. CSE is also a term often used in Europe to translate the name of engineering informatics academic ...

(EECS) from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, supervised by the computer design pioneer

Harry Huskey Harry Douglas Huskey (January 19, 1916 – April 9, 2017) was an American computer design pioneer. Early life and career Huskey was born in Whittier, in the Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina and grew up in Idaho. He received his bache ...

. From 1963 to 1967, he served as assistant professor of

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 ...

and again at the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

. Then in 1968, he became Professor of

Informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems, especially those for data storage and retrieval. According to ACM ''Europe and'' ''Informatics Europe'', informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which ...

at ETH Zürich, taking two one-year sabbaticals at

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

in California (1976–1977 and 1984–1985). He retired in 1999. He was involved with developing

international standard international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...

s in programming and informatics, as a member of the

International Federation for Information Processing The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a global organisation for researchers and professionals working in the field of computing to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Established in 196 ...

(IFIP)

IFIP Working Group 2.1 IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi is a working group of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). IFIP WG 2.1 was formed as the body responsible for the continued support and maintenance of the progra ...

on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi, which specified, maintains, and supports the

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 ...

and

ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and more rigorously de ...

. In 2004, he was made a Fellow of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

"for seminal work in programming languages and algorithms, including Euler, Algol-W, Pascal, Modula, and Oberon."

Programming languages

Wirth was the chief designer of the

Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...

(1965),

PL360 PL360 (or PL/360) is a system programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth and written by Wirth, Joseph W. Wells Jr., and Edwin Satterthwaite Jr. for the IBM System/360 computer at Stanford University. A description of PL360 was published in earl ...

(1966),

ALGOL W ALGOL W is a programming language. It is based on a proposal for ALGOL X by Niklaus Wirth and Tony Hoare as a successor to ALGOL 60. ALGOL W is a relatively simple upgrade of the original ALGOL 60, adding string, bitstring, complex number and r ...

(1966),

(1970),

Modula The Modula programming language is a descendant of the Pascal language. It was developed in Switzerland, at ETH Zurich, in the mid-1970s by Niklaus Wirth, the same person who designed Pascal. The main innovation of Modula over Pascal is a module ...

(1975),

Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...

(1978),

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fair ...

(1987),

Oberon-2 Oberon-2 is an extension of the original Oberon programming language that adds limited reflection and object-oriented programming facilities, open arrays as pointer base types, read-only field export, and reintroduces the FOR loop from Modula-2. ...

(1991), and

Oberon-07 Oberon is a general-purpose programming language first published in 1987 by Niklaus Wirth and the latest member of the Wirthian family of ALGOL-like languages ( Euler, ALGOL W, Pascal, Modula, and Modula-2). Oberon was the result of a concentra ...

(2007). He was also a major part of the design and implementation team for the operating systems Medos-2 (1983, for the

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

), and

(1987, for the

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

workstation), and for the

Lola Lola may refer to: Places * Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama * Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States * Lola Prefecture, Guinea * Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture * Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands People * Lola (fo ...

(1995)

digital hardware Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usually ...

design and simulation system. In 1984, he received the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM)

for the development of these languages. In 1994, he was inducted as a Fellow of the ACM.

Publications

His book, written jointly with Kathleen Jensen, ''The Pascal User Manual and Report'', served as the basis of many language implementation efforts in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States and across Europe. His article ''Program Development by Stepwise Refinement'', about the teaching of programming, is considered to be a classic text in software engineering. In 1975, he wrote the book ''

Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

'', which gained wide recognition. Major revisions of this book with the new title ''Algorithms + Data Structures'' were published in 1985 and 2004. The examples in the first edition were written in Pascal. These were replaced in the later editions with examples written in Modula-2 and Oberon respectively. His textbook, ''Systematic Programming: An Introduction'', was considered a good source for students who wanted to do more than just coding. The cover flap of the sixth edition (1973) stated the book "... is tailored to the needs of people who view a course on systematic construction of algorithms as part of their basic mathematical training, rather than to the immediate needs of those who wish to be able to occasionally encode a problem and hand it over to their computer for instant solution." Regarded as a challenging text to work through, it was sought as imperative reading for those interested in numerical mathematics. In 1992, he and

Jürg Gutknecht Jürg Gutknecht (born 3 January 1949 in Bülach) is a Swiss computer scientist. He developed, with Niklaus Wirth, the programming language Oberon and the corresponding operating system Oberon. Biography Jürg Gutknecht was full professor in th ...

published the full documentation of the Oberon OS. Out of print
Online version of a 2nd edition2005 edition, PDF.
/ref> A second book, with Martin Reiser, was intended as a programming guide.. Out of print.

Wirth's law

In 1995, he popularized the adage now named

Wirth's law Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, a computer scientist who discussed it in his 1995 article "A Plea ...

, which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster. In his 1995 paper ''A Plea for Lean Software'' he attributes it to Martin Reiser.

References

External links

*, ETH Zürich
Biography
at

ETH Zürich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

*
Niklaus E. Wirth
at ACM * *
Turing Award Lecture, 1984Pascal and its Successors
paper by Niklaus Wirth – also includes short biography.

*
The School of Niklaus Wirth: The Art of Simplicity
', by László Böszörményi,

, Gustav Pomberger (editors). dpunkt.verlag;

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is a Burlington, Massachusetts (San Francisco, California until 2008) based publisher specializing in computer science and engineering content. Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published content on information technolog ...

, 2000. , . *The boo
Compiler Construction
*The boo
Algorithms and Data Structures
*The boo
Project Oberon – The Design of an Operating System and Compiler
The book about the Oberon language and Operating System is now available as a PDF file. The PDF file has an additional appendix ''Ten Years After: From Objects to Components''.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wirth, Niklaus E. 1934 births Living people ETH Zurich alumni ETH Zurich faculty Swiss electronics engineers Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Formal methods people Pascal (programming language) Programming language designers Programming language researchers Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Swiss computer scientists Turing Award laureates Université Laval alumni People from Winterthur Computer science educators Scientists at PARC (company) UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni