Alan Perlis

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Alan J. Perlis

| image = Alan Perlis.jpg

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1922|04|01}}

| birth_place = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age |1990|02|07 |1922|04|01}}

| death_place = New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.

| death_cause =

| resting_place =

| resting_place_coordinates =

| other_names =

| pronounce =

| fields = Computer science

| workplaces = {{Unbulleted list |Association for Computing Machinery |Carnegie Mellon University |Purdue University |Yale University}}

| education = {{ubl |Carnegie Mellon University (BS) |Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS, PhD)}}

| doctoral_advisor = Philip Franklin

| doctoral_students = {{Unbulleted list |Gary Lindstrom |Zohar Manna |David Parnas |John R. Levine}}

| thesis_title = On Integral Equations, Their Solution by Iteration and Analytic Continuation

| thesis_year = 1950

| known_for = {{Unbulleted list |IT |ALGOL |APL}}

| awards = {{Unbulleted list |Turing Award, 1966 |Computer Pioneer Award, 1985}}

| footnotes =

}}

Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was the first recipient of the Turing Award.Ulf Hashagen, Reinhard Keil-Slawik, Arthur L. Norberg (2002) History of Computing: Software Issues. p.26

Biography

Perlis was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1939.{{cite web|title=A.M Turing Award Winners: Alan J. Perlis|url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/perlis_0132439.cfm|website=Association for Computing Machinery|access-date=January 21, 2018}} In 1943, he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (later renamed Carnegie Mellon University).

During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army, where he became interested in mathematics. He then earned both a master's degree (1949) and a Ph.D. (1950) in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His doctoral dissertation was titled "On Integral Equations, Their Solution by Iteration and Analytic Continuation".

In 1952, he participated in Project Whirlwind.National Academy of Engineering (1979) "Alan Jay Perlis" in: Memorial tributes. Vol 10. p.168 He joined the faculty at Purdue University and in 1956, moved to the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He was chair of mathematics and then the first head of the computer science department. In 1962, he was elected president of the Association for Computing Machinery.

He was awarded the inaugural Turing Award in 1966, according to the citation, "for his influence in the area of advanced programming techniques and compiler construction." This is a reference to the work he had done on Internal Translator in 1956 (described by Donald Knuth as the first successful compiler), and as a member of the team that developed the programming language ALGOL.

In 1971, Perlis moved to Yale University to take the chair of computer science and hold the Eugene Higgins chair. In 1977, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

In 1982, he wrote an article, "Epigrams on Programming", for the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) SIGPLAN journal, describing in one-sentence distillations many of the things he had learned about programming over his career. The epigrams have been widely quoted.[http://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams-programming Computer science quotations]

He remained at Yale until his death in 1990.

Publications

Publications, a selection:For a listing of his talks and lectures (1951–1988) see [http://purl.umn.edu/41304 Alan J. Perlis Papers, 1942–1989]. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

1957. Internal Translator (IT): A Compiler for the 650. With J. W. Smith and H. R. Van Zoeren.
{{cite journal | doi=10.1145/367177.367202 | author=A. J. Perlis and C. Thornton | title=Symbol manipulation by threaded lists | journal=Communications of the ACM | volume=3 | number=4 | pages=195–204 | date=Apr 1960 | s2cid=18096517 | doi-access=free }}
1965. An introductory course in computer programming. With Robert T. Braden.
1970. A view of programming languages. With Bernard A. Galler
1975. Introduction to computer science
1977. [http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis77.htm In Praise of APL: A Language for Lyrical Programming]
1978. [http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis78.htm Almost Perfect Artifacts Improve only in Small Ways: APL is more French than English]
1981. Software Metrics: An Analysis and Evaluation. With Frederick Sayward and Mary Shaw
1986. FAC: A Functional APL Language. With Tu Hai-Chen.

;About Alan Perlis

{{cite journal |last=Denning |first=Peter J. |author-link=Peter J. Denning |title=Alan J. Perlis—1922–1990: a founding father of computer science as a separate discipline |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=33 |issue=5 |pages=604–605 |date=May 1990 |doi=10.1145/78607.214943|s2cid=22132301 |doi-access=free }}
{{cite book |last=Cheatham |first=Thomas |chapter=ALGOL session |title=History of Programming Languages |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofprogram0000hist/page/171 171] |location=New York, NY |publisher=ACM Press |year=1978 |doi=10.1145/800025.1198357 |access-date=2007-09-18 |isbn=978-0127450407 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/historyofprogram0000hist/page/171 }}

References

External links

[http://purl.umn.edu/107544 Oral history interview with Allen Newell] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Newell discusses the development of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, including the work of Perlis and Raj Reddy, and the growth of the computer science and artificial intelligence research communities.
[http://purl.umn.edu/41304 Alan J. Perlis Papers, 1942–1989]. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Category:Jewish American military personnel

Category:1922 births

Category:1990 deaths

Category:American computer scientists

Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni

Category:Carnegie Mellon University faculty

Category:Scientists from Pittsburgh

Category:Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery

Category:Programming language designers

Category:Turing Award laureates

Category:Yale University faculty

Category:United States Army soldiers