In this post, the list of the greatest computer programmers in history since the beginning of our digital era.
Today we use computers, Macs and PCs a lot. We use many business software to accomplish professional work in record time.
Behind these advances are men and women who have made our current life possible.
Discover the greatest programmers who have made history since the dawn of the computer science field.
The greatest computer programmers of all time from the dawn of computing to now
Before going further I would like to point out that many people have criticized the order in which I have included the names and especially the absence of some big innovators. I would like to clear up here, many misunderstandings about the purpose of the post.
- This is not a ranking of the best programmer in the world . The numbers allow me not to be mistaken about the number I display on the title of the article.
- Why didn’t Steve Jobs make the list? He never coded in his life!!
- Why didn’t we put Steve Wozniak ? He’s more of a hardware engineer (i.e. electronic and computer hardware) than a programmer. But hey, that’s still debatable.
The list is not finished and we will continue to expand it over time, so no worries.
1. 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. You will also find her among the greatest and least known inventors in the world…
2. 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 have been inspired by him.
He is also the author and co-author of several best-selling books on the fundamentals of programming.
3. Bill Gates
The list of influential programmers 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 in several versions and different names in the Windows environment.
4. James Gosling
He is the man who created the Java programming language, the NeWs windowing system and authored GoslingEmacs. After Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, he resigned, saying he wanted to take a long vacation.
Today Java is one of the most influential and widely used programming languages in business.
It is also used to create applications for embedded systems like android phones, electronic chips. The language is also used to create web applications.
5. Guido van Rossum
Have you heard of him? You’ve definitely heard of the language he created. He’s the man behind the Python programming language .
The popularity of the language continues to grow to this day. It is widely used in web application programming, in scientific calculations and simulation. Today with data science, the language is more ubiquitous than ever.
6. Kenneth Thompson
Call him Ken because that’s what he’s called in the hacker community. He worked for Google and developed the Go programming language .
In the past he is also known for one of his inventions that revolutionized the world of operating systems. He is the programmer of the famous Unix operating system .
This kernel is still found today in MacOS. The concept and operation of UNIX inspired another developer to create the most used free kernel in the world and which even bears his name. It is Linux. We will talk a little later in the article but for now, we return to the main subject.
Unix is a system known for its stability and robustness and has nothing to envy other modern OS. Today, Unix operating systems exist in open source in the form of BSD and its derivatives.
Kenneth Thompson is also the developer of the B language, which was the predecessor to the famous C programming language.
7. Donald Knuth
He is the father of the analytical algorithm for his contributions in the field of analysis and computational complexity of algorithms.
Initially, he was to write a book on compilers for programming languages. While working on the project, he decided that he could not move forward without developing a rigorous theory of the foundation of computer programming.
He therefore created a series of volumes of the book entitled “The Art of Computer Programming”. He thus laid the foundations of the analysis and complexity of the algorithm.
Today, we can ensure and measure the performance of digital transactions.
Perform data processing in record time on a low-power machine.
And better, compression algorithms that make it easier to transfer files and process media like 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.
Note: I tried to read his book during my undergraduate studies. I ended up stopping (taking a long break) because it seemed too complicated at the time. Bill Gates once said, if you think you’re very good at programming, read these books.
8. Tim Berners-Lee
He is the author of the hypertext 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 American military. Thanks to the http protocol, Tim allowed the world to create and read information differently.
Currently he is the president of the world wide web consortium abbreviated w3c. This company helps to continue the improvement of the web worldwide.
Without him, even tedidev.com would not be read.
9. Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne is both a programmer 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.
10. Linus Torvalds
Linus is best known for being the creator of the kernel that bears his name: Linux.
At that time, Unix systems were paid and inaccessible to the public. No one could use a computer without special permission.
Thanks to Linux Torvalds, the public was able to have access to different operating systems (or OS) which are still free until today.
The open source Linux kernel is used today in OS like Debian and its derivatives including the famous South African OS Ubuntu. Android, Redhat Linux and its derivatives are also part of it.
To give you a broader idea, Linux is the basis of the most widely used systems in the world to serve you websites, run your smartphones and computers and it continues to be used in the field of robotics.
If Windows is public oriented, Linux systems, although freely available to all, are frequently used in servers and embedded objects. Linux is also found in wifi routers and some televisions.
It even seems that the first versions of Microsoft Windows were based on the Linux kernel.
The history of the Linux kernel is very exciting, I recommend you to follow this video.
11. Dennis Ritchie
C++ is the offspring of the C language and Dennis Ritchie is the programmer who developed it.
C language to give you an idea is used coupled with assembly language to create operating systems including all Unix, Linux, MacOs and even Windows type systems.
All smartphone OS are also created with this same one. It is the language closest to the machine and the most used after assembler. This programming language has inspired many so-called modern programming languages.
Dennis, along with his long-time colleague Ken Thomson (creator of the B language), created the Unix operating system. You may have noticed throughout the article that Unix is a legend.
12. 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 pilot the Apollo 11 space shuttle to the moon.
At a time when software engineering was not considered a profession, Hamilton completed numerous computer science projects, most of which are still in use by the U.S. government and NASA. One of his contributions is the SAGE project .
- SAGE Project: At MIT Lincoln Lab, Margaret Hamilton helped develop a software prototype of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project to enable the U.S. Air Force to detect potentially hostile aircraft. SAGE was quickly developed for military use in air defense against potential Soviet attacks during the Cold War.
- Apollo 11: Her contribution to the development of the Apollo 11 navigation software was critical to the success of the lunar mission. The robustness of her code and the design of the software architecture allowed the programmers she was responsible for to quickly resolve anomalies even before deployment.
His technical expertise in computer science helped lead the Apollo software development team to write a program so robust that it could respond to unlikely events and human errors – that is, the shuttle pilots.
This way of designing computer software has today become a field of computing known as Human Machine Interface (HMI).
In 2016, Barack Obama awarded Margaret Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom for all of these contributions.
13. Larry Page
Larry Page is the designer and programmer of the algorithm that powers the world’s most widely used search engine. In addition to being a great developer, he is also an outstanding entrepreneur.
Born to parents with degrees in computer science, Larry became interested in the field of computer science at an early age.
While at the University of Michigan for his master’s degree in computer science, Page created an inkjet printer using Lego bricks (literally a line plotter).
The idea was to be able to print large posters cheaply using inkjet cartridges – Larry Page reverse-engineered the ink cartridge and built the electronics and mechanics to make it work.
After enrolling in a doctoral program in computer science at Stanford University, Page began exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph.
It is likely that it will be inspired by graph theory.
He met Sergey Brin (his future co-founder) at this university and together wrote a research paper entitled “ The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine ”.
This book became one of the most downloaded scientific documents in the history of the internet at the time.
Larry Page was already entertaining the idea of creating telepresence and autonomous car applications. After his doctorate, we all know the story. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google.
When he started as CEO of Google he wrote a document on business management. Here are the main points of his management principle that his team uses as a reference:
- Don’t delegate: do whatever you can yourself to speed things up.
- Don’t be shy if you’re not adding value. Let the people doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
- Don’t be a bureaucrat.
- Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and cooperation.
- The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, “No, period.” If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to do it.
It is not known whether these principles are still used, but history has shown the result.
Today, as head of Alphabet, Larry Page is one of the rare examples of a software engineer who is also an entrepreneurial genius.
14. Anders Hejlsberg
Anders Hejlsberg is a Danish programmer who has also revolutionized the world through his creations.
He is best known for being the author of the Turbo Pascal programming language . Although the latter has almost disappeared, he contributed to the creation of other programming languages that are still used.
While working as a chief engineer at Borland, he greatly improved the Turbo Pascal language. He also became the chief architect of the team that created the Delphi language, Turbo Pascal’s replacement.
In 1996, Hejlsberg joined Microsoft and one of his major contributions was the creation of the J++ language and then WFC (Windows Foundation Classes).
In 2000 he became Lead Developer of the team responsible for developing the C# language.
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 development using the Angular framework.
15 – KENT BECK
Kent is today the father of the most widely used programming practices today and from which many other methodologies are inspired.
Kent Beck is the inventor of XP Programming and TDD (Test-driven development), a development process where testing is at the center of the entire validation process.
He created the very first unit test library SUnit (for SmallTalk) which initiated the XUnit series then rather JUnit (for Java) with Erich Gamma one of the famous members of the “gangs of four”.
We will continue to add programmers who have left their mark on our world through their innovations and perseverance.
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