Peter Naur Wins 2005 Turing Award

An anonymous reader writes "The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Peter Naur the winner of the 2005 A.M. Turing Award. The award is for Dr. Naur's fundamental contributions to programming language design and the definition of Algol 60, to compiler design, and to the art and practice of computer programming. The Turing Award is considered to be the Nobel Prize of computing, and a well-deserved recognition of Dr. Naur's pioneering contributions to the field."

Comments

Yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can he pass the Turing test himself?

There is a saying...

[geoff lane]

..."Algol 60 is a great improvement on all its successors"

Nice to see Peter getting some recognition.

I didn't think

[Eightyford]

I didn't think humans could win this award.

Me, like many readers of slashdot

[RedLaggedTeut]

Me, like many readers of slashdot, also hope to pass the Turing test one day, so I congratulate him on this achievement.

Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia, the Turing test passes you.

Re:Me, like many readers of slashdot

[MyLongNickName]

Me, like many readers of slashdot, also hope to pass the Turing test one day, so I congratulate him on this achievement.

You passed the test. No computer would mangle the pronoun usage like this! ;)

Re:Me, like many readers of slashdot

[weg]

According to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this will be hard, if you are a Computer Scientist:

(copied from http://www.h2g2.com/ )

Dave? Are you there Dave?

A test for artificial intelligence suggested by the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The gist of it is that a computer can be considered intelligent when it can hold a sustained conversation with a computer scientist without him being able to distinguish that he is talking with a computer rather than a human being.

Some critics suggest this is unreasonably difficult since most human beings are incapable of holding a sustained conversation with a computer scientist.

After a moments thought they usually add that most computer scientists aren't capable of distinguishing humans from computers anyway.

One of Peter Naur's Contributions

[Wayne_Knight]

Look, Naur is mentioned right in the code!

$ diff -Naur inftrees.c../zlib-1.2.2.orig/
--- inftrees.c 2005-07-10 13:38:37.000000000 +0100
+++../zlib-1.2.2.orig/inftrees.c 2004-09-15 15:30:06.000000000 +0100
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@
left -= count[len];
if (left < 0) return -1;/* over-subscribed */
}
- if (left > 0 && (type == CODES || max != 1))
+ if (left > 0 && (type == CODES || (codes - count[0] != 1)))
return -1;/* incomplete set */

Not much of a criterion for a Turing Award, though...

Re:Took a while, didn't it?

[0xC0FFEE]

I hear the Turing committee actually has an infinite red tape.

Re:Took a while, didn't it?

[MichaelSmith]

The designer of Algol-60 is only getting this recognition in 2006?

Must be why they compare it with the Nobel.

Re:Sample code

[GoofyBoy]

Build a macro or some kind of simple code to check FOR you!

I did one in LISP; I'm still trying to find an unmatched (.

Re:Sample code

[musakko]

For those of you like me and have never worked with this language, some sample code is here [monash.edu.au]

Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
Spock: Affirmative.
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.

No more wordy than COBOL. Seems like a cool language

Re:Took a while, didn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean he's indistinguishable from a sentient being?