Edsger dijkstra biography definition
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Edsger W. Dijkstra: Brilliant, colourful, and opinionated
During his life he shaped the field of computer science like no other scientist. His ground-breaking contributions ranged from the engineering to the theoretical side of computer science. They covered areas such as compiler construction, operating systems, distributed systems, sequential and concurrent programming, software engineering, and graph algorithms. Many of Dijkstra’s papers, often just a few pages long, are the source of new research areas. Indeed, several concepts that are now standard in computer science were first identified bygd Dijkstra and bear names coined bygd him.
Dijkstra did not end up becoming a theoretical physicist, thanks to a discussion with Adriaan van Wijngaarden, at that time director of the Mathematisch Centrum’s Computation Department. After working as a programmer at the centre for three years, he knocked on Van Wijngaarden’s door, full of doubt, as he was finding it difficult to combine his
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Edsger W. Dijkstra
Dutch computer scientist (–)
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (DYKE-strə; Dutch:[ˈɛtsxərˈʋibəˈdɛikstraː]ⓘ; 11 May – 6 August ) was a Dutch computer scientist, programmer, software engineer, mathematician, and science essayist.[1][2]
Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dijkstra studied mathematics and physics and then theoretical physics at the University of Leiden. Adriaan van Wijngaarden offered him a job as the first computer programmer in the Netherlands at the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam, where he worked from until He formulated and solved the shortest path problem in , and in developed the first compiler for the programming language ALGOL 60 in conjunction with colleague Jaap A. Zonneveld. In he moved to Eindhoven, and later to Nuenen, where he became a professor in the Mathematics Department at the Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven. In the late s he built the THE multiprogramming system, which influenced the designs of subsequ
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Edsger W. Dijkstra
Born , Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Leading critic of programming without a mathematical proof of correctness and condemner of the infamous GOTO; recipient of the ACM Turing Award.
Education: MS, mathematics and theoretical physics, University of Leiden, ; PhD, computing science, Municipal University of Amsterdam,
Professional Experience: professional programmer, Mathematisch Centrum, ; professor of mathematics, Eindhoven University of Technology, ; research fellow, Burroughs Corp., ; Schlumberger Centennial chair, computer sciences, University of Texas at Austin, present.
Honors and Awards: fellow, Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences; distinguished fellow, British Computer Society, ; ACM Turing Award, ; IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award,
Dijkstra, recipient of the ACM Turing Award, is known for early graph-theoretical algorithms, the first implementation of Algol 60, and the first operating system composed of explicitly synchronized sequenti