Fran Allen Wins Turing Award

shoemortgage writes "The Association for Computing Machinery has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. Allen,74, is the first woman to receive the Turing Award in the 41 years of its history. She retired from IBM in 2002."

Comments

So wait...

[RyanFenton]

...Does this mean she's a cylon?

Ryan Fenton

Ironic

[wombatmobile]

I was glad to hear Fran Allen had won the Turing prize and went searching for an inspirational quote that would help me to appreciate the genius that sets her apart from other humans.

But alas... I only found these.

So I'm left wondering... maybe Fran Allen IS a computer...(?)

In which case... I'm excited! Fran Allen deserves the Turing prize!

Re:Ironic

[skoaldipper]

She is the real deal alright.

Yeah...

[tcdk]

So, what kind of test did she have to complete to qualify?

Re:So, has the black guy won yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...flamebait indeed...how disgusting that the first handful of comments are immediately debasing the award winner as a token.

Why do you feel Allen's selection is so obviously inappropriate/undeserved on the merits that prima facie she's a 'token'?

I work in academia - computer science - and I'm not oblivious to the fact that there's a fair bit of 'affirmative action' for women and non-asian minorities to try to 'correct' the 'problem' of under-representation. Without diverting the conversation onto that issue, please share why you feel Allen is egregiously undeserving?

Fran on Wikipedia

[shudde]

Without getting too far into discussing whether she merited the award or not, since I'm not really qualified to judge. I find it interesting that her Wikipedia entry was only created on 6 February 2007 by a username that has made no other edits. I've always found the Wikipedia coverage of computer science fairly comprehensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran_Allen
Edit history of Jtaylord

Re:Fran on Wikipedia

[TheRaven64]

I've always found the Wikipedia coverage of computer science fairly comprehensive Coverage of computer science is good. Coverage of computer scientists is not. I was sent a link to a computer scientist on Wikipedia a few weeks ago, and it had the 'this is a stub' header across it. I tried searching for a few people I knew to be leaders in fields I've interacted with, and found that some were stubs and most didn't exist. Few people since Church and Turing have full articles, including most of the recent winners of the Grace Murray Hopper Award.

Never heard of her before

[Per Abrahamsen]

And I'm not alone on that, her Wikipedia entry is only two weeks old.

She narrowly beat out a nun with the same name who lived 200 years ago, for first place in a Google search (they get an unimpressive 30k hits combined).

It is quite possible that she is a unacknowledged genius, but it is no surprise that the first reaction isn't "finally!" from most people.

Presumably, we will learn a lot more about her now. Maybe some FORTRAN parallelization experts will outline her contributions for us.

Re:Never heard of her before

[DevStar]

Actually my first response was "Finally!". I think the surprise exhibited by most people on Slashdot has more to do with the level of actual CS sophistication on Slashdot than it does anything else (which is consistently displayed on almost anything related to CS). Her work on program analysis and program transformation has completely changed the field in the same way that Codd changed databases or Thompson changed systems.
Also, RIP Ken Kennedy. Another true star in the field.

Re:Never heard of her before

[Helios1182]

There are very few famous computer scientists, and unless you are an academic or researcher in a given area of CS you don't necessarily know who the important people are. There are people like Dijkstra, Knuth, Rivest, Turing, etc. that almost everyone in CS has heard of, but it is a very limited number. The following is a list of all previous winners, all of whom have done a lot for the field, but I bet even on Slashdot the majority only know of the contributions of a few on the list. 2006 Allen, Frances E 2005 Naur, Peter 2004 Cerf, Vinton G. 2004 Kahn, Robert E. 2003 Kay, Alan 2002 Adleman, Leonard M. 2002 Rivest, Ronald L. 2002 Shamir, Adi 2001 Dahl, Ole-Johan 2001 Nygaard, Kristen 2000 Yao, Andrew Chi-Chih 1999 Brooks, Frederick P. 1998 Gray, James 1997 Engelbart, Douglas 1996 Pnueli, Amir 1995 Blum, Manuel 1994 Feigenbaum, Edward 1994 Reddy, Raj 1993 Hartmanis, Juris 1993 Stearns, Richard E. 1992 Lampson, Butler W. 1991 Milner, Robin 1990 Corbato, Fernando J. 1989 Kahan, William (Velvel) 1988 Sutherland, Ivan 1987 Cocke, John 1986 Hopcroft, John 1986 Tarjan, Robert 1985 Karp, Richard M. 1984 Wirth, Niklaus 1983 Ritchie, Dennis M. 1983 Thompson, Ken 1982 Cook, Stephen A. 1981 Codd, Edgar F. 1980 Hoare, C. Antony R. 1979 Iverson, Kenneth E. 1978 Floyd, Robert W 1977 Backus, John 1976 Rabin, Michael O. 1976 Scott, Dana S. 1975 Newell, Allen 1975 Simon, Herbert A. 1974 Knuth, Donald E. 1973 Bachman, Charles W. 1972 Dijkstra, E. W. 1971 McCarthy, John 1970 Wilkinson, J. H. 1969 Minsky, Marvin 1968 Hamming, Richard 1967 Wilkes, Maurice V 1966 Perlis, A. J.

Not only have I not heard of Fran Allen but...

[cmacb]

I'm surprised Grace Hopper never received the award. When I was coming up in the industry she was always cited as one of the great pioneers of computing.

Re:Not only have I not heard of Fran Allen but...

[OldAndInTheWay]

I am lucky (and old) enough to have attended a lecture by Grace Hopper. She had an uncommon skill at presenting computing technology that was accessible to both technical and nontechnical folks. Fascinating, dynamic, a chain smoker, and perhaps all of 5 feet tall. I still have one of her nanoseconds - a wire cut to the length that an electrical signal can travel in a nanosecond.

Does she deserve the award?

[jacobw]

I'm not a computer scientist, so I don't know offhand if she deserves the award. However, I know a foolproof way to figure out if she does

Just put either her, or a previous winner of the award, in a sealed room and let me ask converse with them via slips of paper passed back and forth. If I can't tell the difference, then she must deserve the award.

Now, if only I can come up with a clever name for this test...

Re:Rare Women

[Xeger]

Hmm. Can you think of anything about engineering that makes it undemocratic?

I follow your premise that childbirth isn't democratic -- it's a biological reality that only women bear children, and all women are affected by the biological and chemical side-effects of their ability to bear children.

However -- try as I might, I can't think of a single sex-specific talent or skill in the field of engineering. Are you claiming that males are biologically better at math, logic, spatial relationships, that sort of thing? I admit it's a tempting explanation for the lack of women in engineering fields. But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women.
(source for recent data)

So: if "engineering ability" is sex-linked, what is the explanation for the recent, dramatic rise in technical women? Is there some kind of genetic mutation occurring? One possible explanation is that women have some latent "engineering ability," though not enough to compete with men; in this case, we should expect the ratio of women/man engineers to converge on an equilibrium point somewhere below 50%.

Is there such an equilibrium point? Are women really less technically-oriented than men? As a rational person, I must admit it's a possibility. However, given that the proportion of women engineers has been trending steadily upward for the past 100 years, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to stabilize anytime soon. Personally, I think that in the 100-year timeframe, as old cultures and mores adapt to changing circumstances, we will see it approach 50%.

Re:Rare Women

[NittanyTuring]

But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women. The term "computer" was first used as job title for people who would do manual calculations; this position was usually held by women. 60 years ago, when electronic computers were invented, programming was a 100% female-dominated field. All the programmers of the ENIAC were women. It was, in fact, seen as unmanly. As soon as programming began to be perceived as challenging and worthwhile, the whole thing turned inside out.

Astronomy

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I thought she discovered the Fran Allen belts.

Re:So, has the black guy won yet?

[glwtta]

And, if we're lucky, maybe at some point they can dedge up a Native American with some mediocre qualifications too.

Yeah, next thing you know they'll be giving it to some gay guy.

Taking the test

[Per Abrahamsen]

I'll take it as a challenge, and see how many names I recognize without looking them up.
2005 Naur, Peter: The N of BNF, even if he prefer the N to stand for "Normal". He is most known here for mandating the use of Danish translations of computer terms when he worked at DIKU.

2004 Cerf, Vinton G. 2004 Kahn, Robert E: Someone in Al Gore's staff.

2003 Kay, Alan: Always talking about nothing at all,

2002 Adleman, Leonard M. 2002 Rivest, Ronald L. 2002 Shamir, Adi: Adleman should be last, I would not recognize the names individually.

2001 Dahl, Ole-Johan 2001 Nygaard, Kristen: I'll simulate knowledge of then one, if you get the message.

2000 Yao, Andrew Chi-Chih 1999 Brooks, Frederick P. 1998 Gray, James: Dunno

1997 Engelbart, Douglas: Just some wimp.

1996 Pnueli, Amir 1995 Blum, Manuel 1994 Feigenbaum, Edward 1994 Reddy, Raj 1993 Hartmanis, Juris 1993 Stearns, Richard E. 1992 Lampson, Butler W.: Dunno

1991 Milner, Robin: Something with semantics...

1990 Corbato, Fernando J. 1989 Kahan, William (Velvel) 1988 Sutherland, Ivan 1987 Cocke, John 1986 Hopcroft, John 1986 Tarjan, Robert 1985 Karp, Richard M.: Dunno.

1984 Wirth, Niklaus: You can call him by value; or you can call him by name.

1983 Ritchie, Dennis M. 1983 Thompson, Ken: Doug McIllroy should have been there.

1982 Cook, Stephen A. 1981 Codd, Edgar F.: Dunno.

1980 Hoare, C. Antony R. : More formalisms.

1979 Iverson, Kenneth E. 1978 Floyd, Robert W : Dunno

1977 Backus, John: SOME WORK ON AUTOMATED FORMULA TRANSLATION.

1976 Rabin, Michael O. 1976 Scott, Dana S. 1975 Newell, Allen 1975 Simon, Herbert A.: Dunno

1974 Knuth, Donald E. : Worst case of "to write the perfect thesis, you must find the perfect pen" EVER.

1973 Bachman, Charles W.: Dunno.

1972 Dijkstra, E. W.: How to GOTO along the shortest path. He don't like Wirthless, so I like him.

1971 McCarthy, John: (when (version 2.0) 'ready-p)

1970 Wilkinson, J. H.: Dunno.

1969 Minsky, Marvin: Not half as smart as his computer.

1968 Hamming, Richard 1967 Wilkes, Maurice V 1966 Perlis, A. J.: Dunno.

--

Summary: 22 dunno's and 15 knowns (by year), so I guess you are right that I shouldn't expect to recognize the name. They do all have Wikipedia pages, but of course these might be written *because* they received the award. From the descriptions there, a handful of the "dunno" invented something I recognize (which is almost like recognizing them), but the rest just "made contributions to" which is more difficult to judge.

Re:Taking the test

[lakeland]

You did roughly as well as me. Here were a few I happened to recognise you missed:

1999, brooks is the mythical man
1996, something in compiler (langauge) theory from memory. Program proofs?
1981, You'll curse yourself for forgetting if I tell you - easy one.
1980, was Tony Hoare's Turing award for formalisms? I thought it was more prgamatic. Though of course he does do a lot of formalism stuff too)
1975, didn't he found expert systems in AI?
1974, beautiful description! Though I've almsot stopped using TeX myself.
1968, see 1981

Re:Rare Women

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women.

Here is an invalid form of argument: We have a sequence of statements, A, B, C, ... ,Y, Z. We also have B=>A, C=>B, D=>C, ..., Z=>Y. We know A, B, C, ..., Y are true. Therefore Z is true.

In order to aid my consideration, could you point out where your argument differs from this?

I also ask you to consider this: suppose that at birth, more men than women have brains suitable for learning the tasks involved in engineering. In the past, humans, who are prone to rampant generalisations, have observed this, and as a result have concluded as a result that all women are incapable of engineering. As a result, women were systematically excluded from careers in engineering. With this hypothesis we'd expect to see (1) a reduced number of women in engineering in the past, (2) an increase in the number of women as the generalisation is corrected, and (3) a ceiling to the proportion of women who work in engineering that falls below 50%.

I know mathematics better than engineering so let me switch to that subject. I've seen no evidence today that women are selected against in the field of mathematics. I've never met a single mathematician who had the slightest desire to keep women out of mathematics. Just about every mathematician I have ever met has an interest in increasing the number of female mathematicians. So I certainly don't buy any conspiracy theory about women being kept out of mathematics. (But I do think the evidence is absolutely clear that women were selected against in the past.) As a result, I find it hard to imagine any mechanism for keeping women out of mathematics other than the ability or inclination of women themselves. On the other hand, maybe my imagination is lacking and you can help stimulate it.