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Leslie Valiant Wins 'Nobel Prize' of Computing

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fast-track-to-sex-and-money dept.

autospa writes "ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Leslie G. Valiant of Harvard University the winner of the 2010 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his fundamental contributions to the development of computational learning theory and to the broader theory of computer science. Valiant brought together machine learning and computational complexity, leading to advances in artificial intelligence as well as computing practices such as natural language processing, handwriting recognition, and computer vision. He also launched several subfields of theoretical computer science, and developed models for parallel computing. The Turing Award, widely considered the 'Nobel Prize in Computing,' is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing. The award carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc."

7 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Turing?... by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Turing Award, widely considered the 'Nobel Prize in Computing,' is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing.

    Turing, you say? Hmm, can't say I ever heard of anyone by that name. Was he famous or something?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:Turing?... by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You'd think that on Slashdot of all places, they wouldn't bother saying "Nobel Prize of computing" in the article title, but would just say "...wins Turing Award."

      If readers don't know who Turing was, they can Google it and learn something in the process.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  2. Summary by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think this is one of the best article summaries I've read on SlashDot in a while. It's actually informative, doesn't assume too much, and is not a complete troll. There is also a complete lack of advertising.

    1. Re:Summary by bmuon · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, it just happened to be the first paragraph of the article. So... Best written article?

  3. Not "Nobel Prize" by Kohath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless you want to suggest the Turing Award is as biased and corrupt as the Nobel Prize awards, you shouldn't conflate the two.

    1. Re:Not "Nobel Prize" by Desler · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, it is not a "Nobel Prize" but as even the wiki article on it says:

      The Turing Award is recognized as the "highest distinction in Computer science"[2] and "Nobel Prize of computing".[3]

      Now that citation 3 is to an article on ACM.org that also says:

      Widely known as the 'Nobel Prize' of computing, the Turing Award recognizes individuals for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to the computing field.

      So basically no one is conflating anything because it is widely known by that moniker.

  4. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..Obama wins the 'Turing Award' of Peace.