One of those who developed the language that computers can understand: Who is Niklaus Wirth?

When you look at these names, do not think "Is this nuclear physics?" These are the computer languages that Niklaus Wirth contributed to: Niklaus Wirth, Pascal, Euler, ALGOL W, Oberon, Oberon-2, Oberon-07, Modula and Modula-2...

By David Foster Published on 18 Eylül 2023 : 15:49.
One of those who developed the language that computers can understand: Who is Niklaus Wirth?

He is a Swiss computer scientist.

Nikalus Wirth, who was born in Switzerland on February 15, 1934, completed his bachelor's degree in electrical and electronics at ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich) in 1959. In 1960, he received his master's degree from Laval University in Canada, and then his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Business life

He served as a professor in the computer science department at Stanford University between 1963 and 1967, and then at the University of Zurich until his retirement in 1999.

Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered 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.

During these years, he wrote programming languages and also developed operating systems called Lilith and Oberon Systems. Lola was part of the digital hardware design and simulation system team.

Euler

According to some sources, the Euler programming language, whose work started in 1965, was developed by Niklaus Wirth and Helmut Weber. The goal was to create a programming language simpler than ALGOL 60.

ALGOL W

It is a programming language developed by Niklaus Wirth and Tony Hoare in 1966. It was the successor of ALGOL 60. It was first implemented on IBM 360 at Stanford University.

Pascal

It is a programming language developed by Niklaus Wirth in 1970, various versions of which are used even today. Pascal language, named after the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal, was developed so that compilers could compile structured programming more easily.

Influenced by the ALGOL language; It has influenced some programming languages such as Java, Modula, and Ada.

Brian Kernighan, one of the developers of the C language, wrote the article "Why Pascal Is Not My Favorite Programming Language" on the Pascal language in 1981.

Module

The Modula programming language, the successor to Pascal, was developed by Niklaus Wirth in 1975. The name of the short-lived Modula comes from its modular programming feature.

Modula-2

Modula-2, developed by Niklaus Wirth in 1978, was developed to keep Pascal up to speed with developing technology. Modula programming language continued its development under the name Modula-2.

It has influenced some programming languages such as Ada, Fortan, and Oberon; It is influenced by some programming languages such as Pascal, Algol-W, and Mesa.

Oberon

It is a programming language developed by Niklaus Wirth and Martin Gutknecht in 1986. This object-oriented language was developed at ETH Zurich.

Although it is similar to the Pascal language, it is a richer language than the Pascal language. It was influenced by the Modula-2 language and influenced Oberon-2 and Oberon-07, which came after it.

Oberon-2

It is an object-oriented programming language developed by Niklaus Wirth and Hanspeter Mössenböck in 1991. Oberon-2 is an upgraded version of Oberon. It is fully compatible with Oberon.

Oberon-07

Oberon-07 is based on the original version of Oberon, not its predecessor Oberon-2. It was developed by Niklaus Wirth in 2006 and revised in the following years.