| Kenneth Lane Thompson | |
 Ken Thompson (left) with Dennis Ritchie
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| Born | February 4, 1943 New Orleans, Louisiana, United States |
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| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Bell Labs Entrisphere, Inc Google Inc. |
| Known for | Unix B (programming language) Belle (chess machine) |
| Notable awards | Turing Award National Medal of Technology Tsutomu Kanai Award |
Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943), commonly referred to as Ken Thompson (or simply ken in hacker circles), is an American pioneer of computer science notable for his work with the B programming language and his shepherding the Unix and Plan 9 operating systems. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (born September 9, 1941) is an American computer scientist notable for his influence on C and other Programming Events 211 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. New Orleans (nʲuːˈɔrliənz nʲuːˈɔrlənz French: La Nouvelle-Orléans) is a major United States port city and the largest city in Louisiana The State of Louisiana ( or, État de Louisiane, pronounced) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the Science of the theoretical foundations of Information and Computation and their Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the Research organization Google Inc is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer B is a programming language that was developed at Bell Labs. It is almost extinct as it was replaced by the C language. Belle was the name of a chess computer and its associated software developed by Joe Condon and Ken Thompson at Bell Labs in the 1970s and 1980s The A M Turing Award is given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly known as the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American Events 211 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the Science of the theoretical foundations of Information and Computation and their B is a programming language that was developed at Bell Labs. It is almost extinct as it was replaced by the C language. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a Distributed operating system, primarily used for research
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Biography
Thompson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.. New Orleans (nʲuːˈɔrliənz nʲuːˈɔrlənz French: La Nouvelle-Orléans) is a major United States port city and the largest city in Louisiana The State of Louisiana ( or, État de Louisiane, pronounced) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America The United States of America —commonly referred to as the He received a Bachelor of Science in 1965 and Master's degree in 1966, both in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from the University of California, Berkeley, where his Master's thesis advisor was Elwyn Berlekamp. A Bachelor of Science ( BS, BSc or BSc in the UK; less commonly S EECS (sometimes ˈiːks "eeks" is an abbreviation for Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. The University of California Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a major research university located in Berkeley Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp (born September 6, 1940 in Dover, Ohio, United States of America) is a professor emeritus of Mathematics
In the 1960s, Thompson and Dennis Ritchie worked on the Multics operating system. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (born September 9, 1941) is an American computer scientist notable for his influence on C and other Programming Multics ( Mult iplexed I nformation and C omputing S ervice was an extremely influential early Time-sharing Operating system While writing Multics, Thompson created the Bon programming language. Bon was a Programming language created by Ken Thompson while he worked on the MULTICS Operating system. The two left the Multics project as it was becoming too complex, but they took the lessons they learned to Bell Labs, where, in 1969, Thompson and Ritchie were the principal creators of the Unix operating system. Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the Research organization Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination There, Thompson also wrote the B programming language, a precursor to Ritchie's C. B is a programming language that was developed at Bell Labs. It is almost extinct as it was replaced by the C language. tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured
Thompson had developed the CTSS version of the editor QED, which included regular expressions for searching text. QED is a line-oriented computer Text editor that was designed by Butler Lampson and L In Computing, regular expressions provide a concise and flexible means for identifying strings of text of interest such as particular characters words or patterns of characters QED and Thompson's later editor ed (the default editor on Unix) contributed greatly to the eventual popularity of regular expressions, previously regarded mostly as a tool (or toy) for logicians. ed is the standard Text editor on the Unix operating system ed was originally written by Ken Thompson and contains one of the first implementations of Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Regular expressions became pervasive in Unix text processing programs (such as grep), and even in some modern programming languages like Perl; they are a central concept in Rob Pike's sam text editor. grep is a command line text search utility originally written for Unix. NOTES FOR EDITORS "Perl" is not an acronym (read the "Name" section below Robert C Pike (born 1956 is a Software engineer and Author. He is best known for his work at Bell Labs, where he was a member of the Unix Sam is a multi-file Text editor originally designed at Bell Labs by Rob Pike (with the help of Ken Thompson and other Unix developers in the Almost all programs that work with regular expressions today use some variant of Thompson's notation for them.
Along with Joseph Condon, he created the hardware and software for Belle, a chess computer. Belle was the name of a chess computer and its associated software developed by Joe Condon and Ken Thompson at Bell Labs in the 1970s and 1980s A chess engine is a Computer program that can play the game of Chess. He also wrote programs for generating the complete enumeration of chess endings, for all 4, 5, and 6-piece endings, allowing chess-playing computer programs to make "perfect" moves once a position stored in them is reached. Chess is a recreational and competitive Game played between two players. Later, with the help of chess endgame expert John Roycroft, Thompson distributed his first results on CD-ROM. Arthur John Roycroft (born 1929 is an English Chess Endgame study composer and author
Thompson's style of programming has influenced others, notably in the terseness of his expressions and a preference for clear statements.
In late 2000, Thompson retired from Bell Labs. He worked at Entrisphere, Inc as a fellow until 2006, and now works at Google as a Distinguished Engineer. A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade Google Inc is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online
Awards
Turing Award
In 1983, Thompson and Ritchie jointly received the Turing Award for their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system. Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) The A M Turing Award is given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing His acceptance speech, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" presented the backdoor attack now known as the Thompson hack, and is widely considered a seminal computer security work in its own right. A backdoor in a Computer system (or Cryptosystem or Algorithm) is a method of bypassing normal Authentication, securing remote access to a computer A backdoor in a Computer system (or Cryptosystem or Algorithm) is a method of bypassing normal Authentication, securing remote access to a computer This article describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering
National Medal of Technology
On April 27, 1999, Thompson and Ritchie jointly received the 1998 National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton for co-inventing the UNIX operating system and the C programming language which together have led to enormous advances in computer hardware, software, and networking systems and stimulated growth of an entire industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States Events 1124 - David I becomes King of Scotland. 1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly known as the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States [1] [2]
Tsutomu Kanai Award
In 1999, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers chose Thompson to receive the first Tsutomu Kanai Award for his role in creating the UNIX operating system, which for decades has been a key platform for distributed systems work. Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (read eye-triple-e) is an international Non-profit, professional organization [3]
Quotes
- "When in doubt, use brute force. In Computer science, brute-force search or exhaustive search, also known as generate and test, is a trivial but very general problem-solving technique "
- "We have persistent objects, they're called files. In Computer science, persistence refers to the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it "
- "One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code. "
- "If you want to go somewhere, goto is the best way to get there. GOTO is a statement found in many computer Programming languages It is a combination of the English words go and to "
- "The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you. "
- "The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. "
- "The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me. ) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. "
References
- ^ Ritchie and Thompson [to] Get National Medal of Technology Bell Labs pre-announcement
- ^ Ritchie and Thompson Receive National Medal of Technology from President Clinton Bell Labs press release
- ^ Ken Thompson Receives Kanai Award for Impact of UNIX System Bell Labs press release
External links
- Ken Thompson Bell Labs page
- ACM Classic: Reflections on Trusting Trust
- Video of Thompson and Ritchie receiving the National Medal of Technology award
- Photos Computer Chess Comes of Age (Computer History Museum)
- Photo - Ken Thompson at the Deep Blue vs. Kasparov match in Philadelphia
- Photo - with Garry Kasparov
- Video of Interview with Ken Thompson Computer Chess Comes of Age (Computer History Museum) (alternative)
- Unix and Beyond: An Interview with Ken Thompson by IEEE Computer Society
- Transcript of an interview with Ken Thompson – Interview by Michael S. Mahoney
- Ken Thompson: A Brief Introduction - by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)
- Jargon file entry on Ken Thompson
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thompson, Kenneth Lane |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Computer Science |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1943 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
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