Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Emil Wirthis a Swiss computer scientist, best known for designing several programming languages, including Pascal, and for pioneering several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984 he won the Turing Award, generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science, for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth15 February 1934
CountrySwitzerland
hands long problem
During the process of stepwise refinement, a notation which is natural to the problem in hand should be used as long as possible.
tests systematic candidates
It is evidently necessary to generate and test candidates for solutions in some systematic manner.
designer program interest
Reliable and transparent programs are usually not in the interest of the designer.
time effort quality
I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages.
teacher duty educate
My duty as a teacher is to train, educate future programmers.
engineering woe tools
Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.
development software humans
Software development is technical activity conducted by human beings.
decision tree problem
The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision.
sound programming aspect
Nevertheless, I consider OOP as an aspect of programming in the large; that is, as an aspect that logically follows programming in the small and requires sound knowledge of procedural programming.
engineering yield resources
Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.
design program contemplation
But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs.
taught example programming
Programming is usually taught by examples.
names way call-me
Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.
mean goal hierarchy
Our ultimate goal is extensible programming. By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.