Peter Lucas (13 January 1935 in Vienna, Austria – 2 February 2015 in California, United States) was an Austrian computer scientist and university professor.

Life

Peter Lucas graduated in 1953 and then studied telecommunications at the Vienna University of Technology. He completed his studies in 1959 with a diploma thesis on the topic of programming electronic calculating machines. Then he was a member of

Heinz Zemanek Heinz Zemanek (actually ''Heinrich Josef Zemanek'') (1 January 1920 – 16 July 2014) was an Austrian computer pioneer who led the development, from 1954 to 1958, of one of the first complete transistorised computers on the European continent. Th ...

's group and was responsible for the system programming of Mailüfterl, the first fully transistorized computer in

continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...

.''OCG-Journal 1/2015: Nachruf auf Peter Lucas''
Journal der Österreichischen Computer Gesellschaft (OCG), Ausgabe 1/2015, retrieved 29 September 2015. In 1961, he moved with the Mailüfterl Group from the Technical University to the IBM company, working at the

IBM Laboratory Vienna IBM Laboratory Vienna was an IBM research laboratory based in Vienna, Austria. The laboratory started with a group led by Heinz Zemanek that moved from the Technische Hochschule (now the Technical University of Vienna). Initially, the group worked ...

, where he worked on the formal description of programming languages. Together with Hans Bekić, Kurt Walk, and

, he was responsible for the formal definition of the IBM programming language PL/I using the Vienna Definition Language (VDL), an important part of the formal method VDM. In addition, he worked together with Hans Bekić on a compiler for

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 ...

. During this time, he gave lectures and lectures at the Vienna University of Technology and the

Johannes Kepler University Linz The Johannes Kepler University Linz (German: ''Johannes Kepler Universität Linz'', short: ''JKU'') is a public institution of higher education in Austria. It is located in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. It offers bachelor's, master's, d ...

, covering theoretical foundations of programming and the formal definition of programming languages. In 1978, he joined the Thomas J. Watson Research Center at Yorktown Heights,

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 * '' ...

, United States, where he worked on experimental compiler projects. In 1979, he moved to IBM in San Jose, California, later the IBM Almaden Research Center. In 1988, he worked in John Backus' group on the definition and implementation of the functional programming language FL. In October 1993, he was appointed as a full professor in

software technology Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists o ...

at the Graz University of Technology, retiring to an emeritus position in July 2001. From 1994, he was chairman of

Formal Methods Europe Formal Methods Europe (FME) is an organization whose aim is to encourage the research and application of formal methods for the improvement of software and hardware in computer-based systems. The association's members are drawn from academia and in ...

(FME) and corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Peter Lucas died on 2 February 2015 at the age of 80.

Awards

* 1968: IBM Outstanding Contribution Award for the formal specification of PL/I * 1969:

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 Best Paper (together with Kurt Walk) * 1987: Honorary Doctorate at the

References

External links

Peter Lucas
at DBLP Bibliography Server {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucas, Peter 1935 births 2015 deaths Scientists from Vienna TU Wien alumni Austrian computer scientists Formal methods people Programming language researchers Austrian expatriates in the United States IBM Research computer scientists Academic staff of the Graz University of Technology Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences