Walter G. Bright is an American

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 ...

who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' computer game.

Early life and education

Bright is the son of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...

pilot Charles D. Bright. He taught himself computer programming from the

type-in program A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, ...

s in '' BASIC Computer Games''. Bright graduated from

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in 1979 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in aerospace engineering. While at university he wrote the ''

'' wargame for the

PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...

mainframe, completing it in 1977.

Career

Bright developed the Datalight C compiler, also sold as Zorland C and later Zortech C. "said Walter Bright, Zortech's directory of technology Bright was the main developer of the Zortech C++ compiler (later becoming

Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...

C++, now Digital Mars C++), which was the first C++ compiler to translate source code directly to object code without using C as an intermediate.

D programming language

Bright is the creator of the D programming language. He has implemented compilers for several other languages, and is considered an expert in many areas related to compiler technology."Lang.NEXT 2012 Expert Panel: Native Languages"
Lang.Next Walter regularly writes scientific and magazine articles about compilers and programming and was a blogger for '' Dr. Dobb's Journal''. Around 2014, Bright wrote Warp, a fast C/C++ preprocessor written in D, for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

References

External links

Walter Bright home page

Computerworld Interview with Walter Bright on D Programming Language
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Walter American computer programmers Living people Programming language designers Year of birth missing (living people) California Institute of Technology alumni