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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?"

13 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 :)

    --

    "What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
  2. what about by Prowl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    tim berners-lee
    alan turing
    larry wall
    bill gates ??
    steve wozniak
    jay miner

    --
    That man tried to kill mah Daddy
  3. How about.. by glh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anders Hejlsberg the creator of C# (and Delphi?)
    - the "Hejlsberg" room

    Larry Wall the creator of Perl
    - the "wall" room?

    Alan Cooper "father of VB"
    - the "Closet"? :)

  4. Obvious by DeadSea · · Score: 4, Funny
    Here is a list of who it should be (Sorry if I left anybody out):
    1. CmdrTaco
    2. Hemos
    3. CowboyNeal
    4. JonKatz
    5. Cliff
    6. jamie
    7. michael
    8. pudge
    9. timothy
    10. DeadSea
  5. Tim Berners-Lee by an_mo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He wrote the first web browser and server

  6. Some cool people by __past__ · · Score: 5, Interesting
    • Edsger Dijkstra, for stuff ranging from the shortest-path algorithm to "Basic considered harmful".
    • Turing and Babbage for the fundaments of CS
    • Alan Kay, inventor of smalltalk and the term "Object-Oriented Programming"
    • Fred Brooks, author of the Mythical Man Month
    • J. McCarthy, who developed Lisp by accident
    --
    Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
  7. my votes by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Larry Wall - This guy is great. He created Perl, a fun, interesting language with great obfuscation potential! - disclaimer: I earn a living writing Perl ;-)

    John Carmack - Doom, Quake, Q3A engine, etc. Plus he works on rockets! John Carmack has done a lot to promote the state of computing today. Just look at how people benchmark PCs, "I got 1.5 trillion fps in Q3A dude!"

    Linus Torvalds - He gave us the last piece to a free *nix. Who knows what would have happened to the GNU project without him.

    Richard Stallman - He started the GNU project. He also should probably be awarded a medal for the most misunderstood person in the industry. There is an equal amount of FUD directed at him as there is directed at GNU/Linux from Microsoft.

    Steve Wozniak - Come on, you can't forget this guy!

    Steve Jobs - Now here is someone who has had an interesting career. He's also the guy who started the push to make software "pretty". Just look at OS X.

    There's plenty of others.

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  8. Grace Hopper is a good one by budalite · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Grace Murray Hopper (bio can be found at The History of Computing ), generally credited with "developing the first compiler and who led the effort in the 60's to develop COBOL." Cool lady.

  9. 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/

    --
    No sig? Sigh...
  10. Dijkstra by Hard_Code · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How about the recently late Edsger Dijkstra.

    The day he passed, I printed out and tacked this quote to my cube:

    "I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough immortality for me"
    --Edsger Dijkstra
    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
  11. Dave Cutler by shoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  12. Define innovators by Ivan+Raikov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the exception of Donald Knuth, all of the names you list are of people who had mostly engineering contributions, as opposed to bringing scientific advancements in the field (although the two are somewhat related). Did you mean to exclude the people who created and formalized computer science? If not, then you most definitely want to include Alan Turing, Edsger Dijsktra, C. Antony R. Hoare, Niklaus Wirth, and Marvin Minsky.

    --
    Bush Lies Watch
  13. Re:Larry Wall.... by gowen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, but imagine the confusion of a door with the word "Wall" written on it...

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.