Steven Stanley Muchnick (1945-2020) was a noted

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 ...

researcher, best known as author of the 1997 treatise on

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

s, ''"Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation."''

Background

In 1974, Muchnick was awarded a PhD in computer science from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. After graduation, he became a professor at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

, located in

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...

. During his tenure at that institution, he wrote several research papers, many of which were published in 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 ...

. Muchnick eventually departed from his teaching profession. He then went on to apply his knowledge of compilers as a vital member of the teams that developed two

computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...

s —

PA-RISC PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture. The design is also referred to as ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

and

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

. Upon completion of the initial work on each architecture, he served as the leader of the advanced compiler design and implementation groups for these systems. Later Muchnick became involved in the prevention of HIV infections. In 2010 he was a member of the San Francisco HIV Prevention Planning Center.

References

Cornell University alumni University of Kansas faculty American computer scientists Living people Hewlett-Packard people Sun Microsystems people 1945 births {{US-academic-scientist-stub