William Clinger (computer scientist)
{{short description|American computer scientist and associate professor at Northeastern University}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = Professor
| name = William D. Clinger
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| citizenship = United States
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| fields = Computer science
| workplaces = Northeastern University
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| education = PhD, MIT
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| doctoral_advisor = Carl Hewitt
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| known_for = {{Unbulleted list |Actor model denotational semantics |Scheme IEEE–ANSI standards}}
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William D. Clinger is an associate professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University.{{cite web |url=https://www.khoury.northeastern.edu/people/william-d-clinger/ |title=William D. Clinger |website=Khoury College of Computer Sciences |publisher=Northeastern University |access-date=2019-04-07}} He is known for his work on higher-order and functional programming languages, and for extensive contributions in helping create and implement international technical standards for the programming language Scheme via the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Clinger was an editor of the second through fifth Revised Reports on Scheme (R2RS – R5RS),{{cite web |url=http://scheme-punks.org/wiki/ |title=Scheme Standards |website=SchemePunks |access-date=2009-01-09}} and an invited speaker on Scheme at the Lisp50 conference celebrating the 50th birthday of the language Lisp.{{cite conference |work=Lisp50 |title=Schedule |url=http://www.lisp50.org/schedule/ |access-date=2009-01-09}} He has been on the faculty at Northeastern University since 1994.{{cite web |url=http://lisp50.blogspot.com/2008/10/william-clinger-will-speak-at-lisp50.html |title=William Clinger will speak at Lisp50 |last=Costanza |first=Pascal |date=October 2008 |work=Lisp50 |access-date=2009-01-10}}
Research
Clinger obtained his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the supervision of Carl Hewitt. His doctoral research revolved around defining a denotational semantics for the actor model of concurrent computing,{{cite journal |last=Clinger |first=William |title=Foundations of Actor Semantics |url=https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6935 |publisher=MIT |version=Mathematics Doctoral Dissertation |date=June 1981|hdl=1721.1/6935 }} which is the same model of computing that originally motivated development of Scheme.{{cite journal
|date=December 1998
|url=http://www.brics.dk/~hosc/local/HOSC-11-4-pp399-404.pdf
|title=The First Report on Scheme Revisited
|journal=Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation
|volume=11
|issue=4
|pages=399–404
|doi=10.1023/A:1010079421970
|access-date=2006-06-19
|last1=Steele |first1=Guy L.
|author-link=Guy L. Steele
|last2=Sussman |first2=Gerald Jay
|s2cid=7704398
|author-link2=Gerald Jay Sussman
}}
In addition to editing the R2RS – R5RS Scheme standards, Clinger's contributions to Scheme have included the development of compilers for two implementations of the language: MacScheme,{{cite web |url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/lang/scheme/part2/faq-doc-2.html |last1=Kantrowitz |first1=Mark |last2=Margolin |first2=Barry |title=Commercial Scheme implementations |work=FAQ: Scheme Implementations and Mailing Lists |year=1997 |access-date=2009-01-10 |quote=MacScheme is a Scheme interpreter and compiler for the Apple Macintosh, and includes an editor, debugger and object system. ... Implemented by Will Clinger, John Ulrich, Liz Heller and Eric Ost.}} and Larceny.{{cite web |url=http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/will/Larceny/history.html |title=History |last=Clinger |first=William D. |year=2008 |work=The Larceny Project |access-date=2009-01-10}} He also invented efficient algorithms for hygienic macro expansion, accurate decimal-to-binary conversions, and bounded-latency generational garbage collection.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Official website|www.khoury.northeastern.edu/people/william-d-clinger}}
{{Lisp programming language}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clinger, William}}
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:American computer programmers
Category:American computer scientists