Jump to content

Brian Kernighan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Werddemer (talk | contribs) at 07:13, 4 November 2013 (→Summary of achievements). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Brian Wilson Kernighan
Born (1942-01-01) January 1, 1942 (age 83)[1]
Toronto, Canada
CitizenshipCanadian
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
Princeton University
Known forUnix, AWK, AMPL
The C Programming Language (book)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
InstitutionsPrinceton University

Brian Wilson Kernighan (/ˈkɜːrn[invalid input: 'ɨ']hæn/; born January 1, 1942)[1] is a Canadian computer scientist who worked at Bell Labs alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and contributed to the development of Unix. He is also coauthor of the AWK and AMPL programming languages. The 'K' of K&R C and the 'K' in AWK both stand for 'Kernighan'. Brian Kernighan is currently a Professor at the Computer Science Department of Princeton University, where he is also the Undergraduate Department Representative.

Kernighan's name became widely known through co-authorship of the first book on the C programming language with Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan affirmed that he had no part in the design of the C language ("it's entirely Dennis Ritchie's work").[2] He authored many Unix programs, including ditroff, and cron for Version 7 Unix.

In collaboration with Shen Lin he devised well-known heuristics for two NP-complete optimization problems: graph partitioning and the travelling salesman problem. (In a display of authorial equity, the former is usually called the Kernighan–Lin algorithm, while the latter is styled Lin–Kernighan.)

Kernighan was the software editor for Prentice Hall International. His "Software Tools" series spread the essence of 'C/Unix thinking' with makeovers for BASIC, FORTRAN, and Pascal - and most notably his 'Ratfor' (rational FORTRAN) was put in the public domain.

He has said that if stranded on an island with only one programming language it would have to be C.[3]

Kernighan coined the term Unix in the 1970s. The original term he coined was Unics (for Uniplexed Information and Computing Service, a play on Multics), which was later changed to Unix.[citation needed] Kernighan is also known as a coiner of the expression "What You See Is All You Get (WYSIAYG)", which is a sarcastic variant of the original "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG).[citation needed] Kernighan's term is used to indicate that WYSIWYG systems might throw away information in a document that could be useful in other contexts.

Early life and education

Born in Toronto, Kernighan attended the University of Toronto between 1960 and 1964, earning his Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics.[2] He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton University, where he has held a professorship in the department of computer science since 2000. Each fall he teaches a course called "Computers in Our World", which introduces the fundamentals of computing to non-majors.

Summary of achievements

Writings

References

  1. ^ a b Lohr, Steve (31 October 2002). "To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science". The New York Times. Mr. Kernighan, 60, is a renowned computer scientist
  2. ^ a b Dolya, Aleksey (29 July 2003). "Interview with Brian Kernighan". Linux Journal.
  3. ^ Budiu, Mihai (July, 2000). "An Interview with Brian Kernighan". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Wikiquote has quotations related to Brian Kernighan.

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Brian_Kernighan&oldid=580122981"