Jean Ichbiah

{{Infobox person

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Jean David Ichbiah

| honorific_suffix =

| image = Photo_jean_ichbiah.jpg

| image_size = 280px

| caption = Jean Ichbiah 1989-90, picture for ALSYS

| known_for = chief designer (1977–1983) of the Ada programming language

"Jean Ichbiah (1940–2007)",

Ada Information Clearinghouse, 2007

[http://archive.adaic.com/news/pressrelease/ichbiah.html AdaIC].

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1940|03|25|df=y}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2007|01|26|1940|03|25|df=y}}

| death_place =

| alma_mater =

| employer =

| nationality =

| occupation = computer scientist

Executive Director Alsys

| spouse =

| children =

| awards =

}}

Jean David Ichbiah (25 March 1940 – 26 January 2007) was a French computer scientist. From 1977 to 1983, he was the chief designer of Ada, a general-purpose, strongly typed programming language with certified validated compilers.

Early life

Ichbiah was a descendant of Greek and Turkish Jews{{cite web

|url = http://www.academie-sciences.fr/academie/membre/Ichbiah_Jean.htm

|title = In memoriam, Jean ICHBIAH

|author = Colmerauer, Alain

|author-link = Alain Colmerauer

|date = July 2007

|access-date = 2015-04-22

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150503012605/http://www.academie-sciences.fr/academie/membre/Ichbiah_Jean.htm

|archive-date = 2015-05-03

|language = fr

}} from Thessaloniki who emigrated to France.{{cite web

| author=Jean Ichbiah

| title=Disappointed by lack of localization/customization capabilities | access-date = 2007-02-13

| quote=...my mother was born in Saloniki

| url = http://www.fitaly.com/board/winceforum/posts/2291.html

}}

Career

In 1980, he founded the Company Alsys. From 1972 to 1974, he worked on designing an experimental system implementation language called LIS, based on Pascal and Simula.{{cite web

|url=http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/english/bull_software.htm

|title=Software at Bull

|access-date=2010-07-13

|quote=LIS was an experimental implementation language designed by Jean Ichbiah on Siris8. LIS was not used on commercial CII products. LIS was inspired by Pascal and Simula and has contributed to the definition of Ada.

|url-status=live

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710234237/http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/english/bull_software.htm

|archive-date=2011-07-10

}} He had been chairman of the Simula User's Group and was one of the founding members of IFIP WG 2.4 on Systems Implementation Languages.{{cite web

| url = http://www.cs.uvic.ca/~wg24/history.html

| title = The Beginning of IFIP Working Group 2.4

| access-date = 2007-02-13 | author = Gerhard Goos

}}

He then joined CII Honeywell Bull (CII-HB) in Louveciennes, France, becoming a member of the Programming Research division. Among other projects, he worked on the rewrite of the Siris 7 operating system into Siris 8 computer restructuring Iris 80 .

Ichbiah's team submitted a language design labelled "Green" to a competition to choose the United States Department of Defense's embedded programming language. When Green was selected in 1978, he continued as chief designer of the language, now named "Ada". In 1980, Ichbiah left CII-HB and founded the Alsys corporation in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, which continued language definition to standardize Ada 83, and later went into the Ada compiler business, also supplying special validated compiler systems to NASA, the US Army, and others. He later moved to the Waltham, Massachusetts subsidiary of Alsys.

In the 1990s, Ichbiah designed the keyboard layout FITALY, which is specifically optimized for stylus or touch-based input. Subsequently, he started the Textware Solutions company, which sells text entry software for PDAs and tablet PCs, as well as text-entry software for medical transcription on PCs.

Awards and honors

In 1979, Jean Ichbiah was designated a chevalier (knight) of the French Legion of Honour and a correspondent of the French Academy of Sciences. He received a Certificate of Distinguished Service from the United States Department of Defense for his work on Ada.

Death

Jean Ichbiah died from complications of a brain tumor on January 26, 2007.{{cite newsgroup

| title = In Remembrance of Jean Ichbiah | author = Joyce Tokar

| date=2007-01-28 | newsgroup=comp.lang.ada | accessdate=31 January 2007

| message-id= 9b850$45bd0bc6$cc0ba50e$14514@alevelhigher.com

| url = https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.ada/BnuXTpoWeKI

}}

References

External links

[http://archive.adaic.com/news/pressrelease/ichbiah.html Jean Ichbiah (1940-2007)], press release by the Ada Resource Association
"[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/02/ichbiah_obit/ Programming pioneer dies — A tribute to Ada's Jean Ichbiah]", by Phil Manchester (2007-02-02)
[http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/eulogies/ichbiah.pdf Obituary] by Bertrand Meyer, as published in SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
[http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/03/03/jean_ichbiah_66_designed_landmark_computer_language/ Jean Ichbiah, 66; designed landmark computer language] (Boston Globe)
[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2549446/ada-inventor-jean-ichbiah-dies.html Ada inventor Jean Ichbiah dies] (Computerworld)
[https://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Liste-des-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membres-du-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-i.html Member of the French Academy of Sciences] {{in lang|fr}}
[http://www.ada-europe.org/archive/auj/auj-28-1.pdf#page=5 Ada 83 designer Jean Ichbiah dies], Ada User's Journal, Ada-Europe 2007

Category:Ada (programming language)

Category:American computer scientists

Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour

Category:Neurological disease deaths in Massachusetts

Category:Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts

Category:Deaths from brain cancer in the United States

Category:French computer scientists

Category:20th-century French Sephardi Jews

Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences

Category:Programming language designers

Category:Programming language researchers

Category:1940 births