Little known outside his field, Edsger Wybe Dijkstra was a highly influential and often controversial figure in the history of computer science. Krzysztof Apt writes a tribute to his colleague, a pioneer and a genius whose work shaped the field like few others.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Niklaus Wirth, a computing pioneer who passed away January 1st. In 1995 he wrote an influential article called “A Plea for Lean Software”, and in what follows, I try to make the same case nearly 30 years later, updated for today’s computing horrors.
The really short version: the way we build/ship software these days is mostly ridiculous, leading to 350MB packages that draw graphs, and simple products importing 1600 dependencies of unknown provenance.
Niklaus Wirth, or the Importance of Being Simple acm.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from acm.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.