Last updated February 17, 2023 at 06:38 AM
In this post, the list of the greatest computer scientists in the world since the beginnings of computing.
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Today we use computers, Macs and PCs a lot. Many business software are used to complete professional work in record time.
Behind these advances hide men and women who have made possible our current geek life.
The list of the greatest computer scientists in the world is in this post.
World's Greatest Computer Scientists
Before going further I would like to clarify that the list is not ordered. If you find your favorite developer in the middle or at the end, that doesn't mean they're the worst or worst.
The list isn't complete either, so if you can't find your favorite computer scientist, kindly suggest it to me.
Let's also agree on one thing: Steve Job is not a computer scientist.
The long list of computer scientists, developers begins with the best known and the oldest, in short the very first: Ada Lovelace.
Ada Lovelace
She was a mathematician who worked on Charles Babbage's mechanical general-purpose computer known as the Analytical Engine.
She is the first female programmer in history and in the world.
Niklaus Wirth
He is a Swiss computer scientist recognized as one of the pioneers of programming languages.
He is responsible for the design of several programming languages, the best known of which are Pascal, Euler and Algol. Many modern programming languages are inspired by it.
He is also the author and co-author of several best-selling books on the fundamentals of programming.
Bill Gates
The list of influential computer scientists can never be complete without mentioning the founder and creator of Microsoft.
Bill Gates created the BASIC language when he was still a student. Today this language is used under several versions and different names in the Windows environment.
james goslin
He is the man who created the Java programming language, the NeWs windowing system and author of GoslingEmacs. After the purchase of Sun Microsystem by Oracle, he took his resignation indicating that he wants to take a long vacation.
Today Java is one of the most influential and used programming languages by companies.
It is also used to create applications for embedded systems such as Android phones, microchips. The language is also used to create web applications.
Guido van Rossum
Have you heard of him? You have certainly heard of the language he created. He's the man behind the programming language Python.
The popularity of the language continues to grow until today. It is widely used in web application programming, in calculations and scientific simulation. Today with data science, language is more ubiquitous than ever.
Dennis Ritchie
C ++ is the offspring of the C language and Dennis Ritchie is the computer scientist who developed it.
The C language to give you an idea is used coupled with assembly language to create operating systems including all Unix-like systems, Linux , macOS and even windows.
All smartphone OS are also created with this same. It is the language closest to the machine and the most used after the assembler.
This programming language has inspired many so-called modern programming languages.
Dennis along with longtime colleague Ken Thomson (creator of the B language) created the Unix operating system.
Kenneth Thompson
Call him Ken because that's what he's called in the hacker community. He worked for Google and developed the programming language Go.
Kenneth Thompson is also the computer scientist who developed the B language, which was the predecessor of the illustrious C programming language.
The previous works are not the ones that made him the computer scientist on our list.
Kenneth Thompson created a system that turned the world of operating systems upside down. He is the programmer of the famous operating system Unix .
Unix is a system known for its stability and robustness and has nothing to envy to other modern OS.
In fact, many operating systems run on the UNIX model. I mean MacOS, BSD (like free bsd which is open source) and above all, Linux.
Linus Torvalds
Linus certainly tells you a few things, doesn't it?
At the time, Unix systems were paid for and inaccessible to the public. No one could use a computer without special permission.
Thanks to Linux Torvalds, the public could have access to many operating systems (also called OS) which are still free until today.
For those who haven't figured it out yet, Linux Torvalds is the developer of the Linux kernel.
This open source kernel is used today in OSes like Debian and its derivatives (like Ubuntu, the famous African operating system), Redhat Linux and its derivatives, then Android.
The history of the Linux kernel is very exciting, I recommend that you follow this video.
Donald knuth
He is the father of the analytical algorithm for his contributions in the field of analysis and the computational complexity of algorithms.
At the beginning, this mathematician – computer scientist should write a book on the compilers of programming languages.
While working on the project, he felt he could not move forward without developing a rigorous theory on the foundation of computer programming.
He therefore created a series of volumes of the book entitled " The Art of Computer programming ". It thus lays the foundations of the analysis and the complexity of the algorithm.
Today, we can ensure and measure the performance of digital transactions.
Perform data processing in record time on a non-powerful machine.
And better, the compression algorithms that facilitate the transfer of files and the processing of media such as images and videos.
All this thanks to algorithms that can be rigorously measured, improved and even created. This is possible thanks to the foundation laid by Knuth.
Tim Berners-Lee
He is the author of the protocol hyper text transfer protocol known as http . He is the very first developer to create and define the foundations of what we know today as the world wide web or www.
Before Tim, the internet was used by the US military. Thanks to the http protocol, Tim has enabled the world to create and read information differently.
Currently he is the President of world wide web consortium abbreviated w3c. This company allows to continue the improvement of the web all over the world.
Without him even tedidev.com would not be read.
Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne is both a computer scientist and a mathematician. He is best known for creating the C++ programming language.
This language is also one of the most used in the world and is known for its use in the creation of video games.
Margaret Hamilton
You may not know her, but she is the inventor of the term “ software engineering".
What started as a joke between colleagues has now become a discipline in its own right. Hamilton is also known for creating the software that allowed astronauts to fly the Apollo 11 space shuttle to the moon.
At the time when software engineering was not seen as a profession, Hamilton carried out many computer projects, most of which are still used by the American government and the NASA. One of his contributions is the project SAGE.
His technical expertise in computer science led the Apollo software development team to write a program so robust that it could react to improbable events and human errors, ie the shuttle pilots.
This way of designing computer software has today become a computer field known as the Human-Machine Interface (HMI).
In 2016, Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Margaret Hamilton for all these contributions.
Larry Page
Larry Page is the creator of the algorithm that powers the most widely used search engine in the world. I'm talking about Google.
In addition to being a great computer scientist, he is also an outstanding entrepreneur. Alphabet (formerly called google) is what it is today, thanks to its ability to obtain funding. ( That's another story ).
In addition to having co-created Google (the search engine) he has made it possible to achieve the craziest inventions of our time such as autonomous cars and google maps. I don't want to name all of Alphabet's accomplishments.
Today at the head of Alphabet, Larry Page is one of the rare examples of a computer engineer who is also an entrepreneurial genius.
Anders Hejlsberg
Anders Hejlsberg is a Danish computer scientist who has also revolutionized the world through his creations.
He is well known for being the author of the programming language Turbo pascal. Although the latter has almost disappeared, He has contributed to the creation of other programming languages which are still in use.
He is the computer scientist at the head of the C# language development project which is widely used today for the development of web applications under Windows.
In 2012 Anders Hejlsberg announced the Typscript project.
Today Typescript is one of the most widely used web programming languages in the world. It is also used for web development using the Angular framework.
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