Niklaus Wirth (1934–2024) was a Swiss computer scientist known for his contributions to programming language design and software engineering. A pioneer in structured programming, he advocated simplicity and efficiency, earning the 1984 Turing Award.
Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, he studied electrical engineering at ETH Zürich, earning a B.Sc. in 1958. He pursued further studies at Laval University (M.Sc., 1960) and the University of California-Berkeley (PhD, 1963.) He later became a professor at ETH Zürich, where he spent most of his career.
Wirth designed several influential programming languages, including Euler (1965,) ALGOL W (1966,) Pascal (1970,) Modula (1975,) Modula-2 (1978,) Oberon (1987,) and Oberon-2 (1991.) His book Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs (1975) became a foundational text in computer science.
Other notable works include Systematic Programming (1973,) Programming in Modula-2 (1982,) and Project Oberon (1992,) co-authored with Jürg Gutknecht, detailing the Oberon operating system and language.
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Quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensible luxury, but a simple necessity.
—Niklaus Wirth
Topics: Enjoyment
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