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Top Ten Software Innovators?

Posted by Cliff on from the new-naming-conventions dept.

Rsriram asks: "At our company we have named some of the conference rooms with names of software innovators. The names include Ken Thompson, Donald Knuth, Ada Lovelace, Dennis Ritchie. We need to name 10 more rooms and I was wondering who Slashdot readers would think are the top ten software innovators. Not computer hardware but software. I was thinking Von Neumann, and Linus Torvalds would find a mention, What about Watts Humphrey?"

5 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Linus by Komarosu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your choice about linus is a good one, what can you say bar he has even Microsoft flapping...maybe deviating a bit but Richard Stallman? He and the FSF group have had a lasting effect on software...i'd class that as good reason :)

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  2. Linus by sql*kitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    . Not computer hardware but software. I was thinking Von Neumann, and Linus Torvalds would find a mention

    Linus Torvalds should not be on such a list. Tananbaum was wrong to say that Linux is obsolete, but he was correct that it is of little academic interest. Linus' skill is not in innovation, it is in execution and dare I say it, project management.

    Von Nuemann and the others you mentioned were theorists, people on the science side of computer science, who developed new theories. They changed the way people think about the whole field.

  3. Tim Berners-Lee by an_mo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He wrote the first web browser and server

  4. Bill Atkinson by Anonymous+Codger · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Wrote much of the original Mac UI, wrote the revolutionary Quickdraw, wrote the first version of MacPaint, and invented HyperCard. If anyone belongs on this list, he does.

    Here's a brief profile on Apple.com: http://www.apple.com/creative/stories/atkinson/

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  5. Dave Cutler by shoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dave Cutler, architect of RSX-11, VMS, and Windows NT. (For better and worse, in that order!)