Alan Jay Perlis Received the First Turing Award in 1966, for Advanced Programming and Compilers
Alan J. Perlis was born in 1922, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1955, Perlis began designing a high-level language for Purdue University’s Datatron 205 computer; such a language would be easier to learn than the low-level machine language of this specific computer. Within a few years, several universities were using this “IT” language on IBM 650 computers.
Perlis later contributed to the ALGOL-60 language. By highlighting the algorithms, this language helped to cement the view that computing was a discipline unto itself, rather than a clumsy way to make the computer hardware operate.
As the first recipient of the A.M. Turing Award, Perlis set a high standard for guiding collaborative efforts across a variety of institutions and for his work in education. Alan Jay Perlis died in 1990, while still a professor at Yale University.
The ACM’s A.M. Turing Award
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) promotes: the advancement of the disciplines involved in Information Technology and computer science; professional development; research and public policy. Named for the late British mathematician Alan Turing, the A.M. Turing Award honors those who make “major contributions of lasting importance to computing.”
References:
PhysOrg. Artificial intelligence pioneer wins A.M. Turing Award. (2012). Accessed March 20, 2012.
Association for Computing Machinery. A.M. Turing Award. (2012). Accessed March 20, 2012.
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