Adriaan van Wijngaarden and the start of
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Adriaan van Wijngaarden and the start of computer science in the Netherlands Jos Baeten, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, UvA Adriaan van Wijngaarden and the start of computer science in the Netherlands Jos Baeten, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, UvA Adriaan van Wijngaarden 2 November 1916 – 7 February 1987 Graduated TH Delft Mechanical Engineering 1939 PhD TH Delft on calculations for a ship propellor 1945 London February 1946: look at mathematical machines Stichting Mathematisch Centrum 11 February 1946 Mathematics as a service Pure mathematics department Statistics department Computing department (1947) Applied mathematics department (1948) 1 January 1947 head of computing department 1 January 1947 head of computing department ‘Girls of Van Wijngaarden’ 1947: in the UK, also USA Met Turing, Von Neumann, others Plantage Muidergracht 6 Automatische Relais Rekenmachine Amsterdam Tweede Boerhaavestraat 49 ARRA II N.V. Elektrologica, 1957 Algol 60 • In 1955, committee started on unified notation of computer programs • Friedrich Bauer, 1958, International Algebraic Language • 1959, Algorithmic Language, Van Wijngaarden and Dijkstra join • 1960 editor of Algol 60 report • Separation of hardware and software Algol 68 IFIP Working Group 2.1 taking the lead Starts formal language theory (Chomsky’s universal grammar) Van Wijngaarden grammars Reasoning about language and programs Some achievements 1958 started Nederlands RekenMachine Genootschap Nederlands Genootschap voor Informatica 1959 started International Federation for Information Processing 1961 - 1980 Director of Mathematical Centre 1952 - 1981 Professor Numerical Mathematics at UvA PhD students 1956 1958 1959 1960 1964 1967 1968 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974 1976 1982 Willem van der Poel Nicolaas de Troye Edsger Dijkstra Guus Zoutendijk Jacob Zonneveld Jaco de Bakker Reinder van de Riet Barry Mailloux Jacobus Verhoeff Hugo Brandt Corstius Maarten van Emden Peter van Emde Boas Herman te Riele Dick Grune PhD students 1956 1958 1959 1960 1964 1967 1968 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974 1976 1982 Willem van der Poel Nicolaas de Troye Edsger Dijkstra Guus Zoutendijk Jacob Zonneveld Jaco de Bakker Reinder van de Riet Barry Mailloux Jacobus Verhoeff Hugo Brandt Corstius Maarten van Emden Peter van Emde Boas Herman te Riele Dick Grune PhD students 1956 1958 1959 1960 1964 1967 1968 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974 1976 1982 Willem van der Poel Nicolaas de Troye Edsger Dijkstra Guus Zoutendijk Jacob Zonneveld Jaco de Bakker Reinder van de Riet Barry Mailloux Jacobus Verhoeff Hugo Brandt Corstius Maarten van Emden Peter van Emde Boas Herman te Riele Dick Grune PhD students 1956 1958 1959 1960 1964 1967 1968 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974 1976 1982 Willem van der Poel Nicolaas de Troye Edsger Dijkstra Guus Zoutendijk Jacob Zonneveld Jaco de Bakker Reinder van de Riet Barry Mailloux Jacobus Verhoeff Hugo Brandt Corstius Maarten van Emden Peter van Emde Boas Herman te Riele Dick Grune @