Jean David Ichbiah (25 March 1940 – 26 January 2007) was a French

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

. From 1977 to 1983, he was the chief designer of Ada, a general-purpose,

strongly typed programming language In computer programming, one of the many ways that programming languages are colloquially classified is whether the language's type system makes it strongly typed or weakly typed (loosely typed). However, there is no precise technical definition o ...

with certified validated

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

Early life

Ichbiah was a descendant of Greek and Turkish Jews from

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

who emigrated to France.

Career

In 1980, he founded the Company Alsys. From 1972 to 1974, he worked on designing an experimental system implementation language called

LIS LIS or LiS may refer to: Computing * LIS (programming language) * Lis (linear algebra library), library of iterative solvers for linear systems * Laboratory information system, databases oriented towards medical laboratories * Land information sys ...

, based on Pascal and

Simula Simula is the name of two simulation programming languages, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard. Syntactically, it is an approximate superset of AL ...

. He had been chairman of the Simula User's Group and was one of the founding members of IFIP WG 2.4 on Systems Implementation Languages. He then joined CII Honeywell Bull (CII-HB) in Louveciennes, France, becoming a member of the Programming Research division. Among other projects, he worked on the rewrite of the Siris 7 operating system into Siris 8 computer restructuring Iris 80 . Ichbiah's team submitted a language design labelled "Green" to a competition to choose the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

's embedded programming language. When Green was selected in 1978, he continued as chief designer of the language, now named " Ada". In 1980, Ichbiah left CII-HB and founded the Alsys corporation in

La Celle-Saint-Cloud La Celle-Saint-Cloud () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is a western outer suburb of Paris, from its centre, on the departmental border with Hauts-de-Seine. In 2021, it had a popula ...

, which continued language definition to standardize Ada 83, and later went into the Ada compiler business, also supplying special validated compiler systems to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

, and others. He later moved to the

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the Technological and industrial history of the United States, American Industrial Revoluti ...

subsidiary of Alsys. In the 1990s, Ichbiah designed the keyboard layout FITALY, which is specifically optimized for

stylus A stylus is a writing utensil or tool for scribing or marking into softer materials. Different styluses were used to write in cuneiform by pressing into wet clay, and to scribe or carve into a wax tablet. Very hard styluses are also used to En ...

or touch-based input. Subsequently, he started the Textware Solutions company, which sells text entry software for PDAs and tablet PCs, as well as text-entry software for

medical transcription Medical transcription, also known as MT, is an allied health profession dealing with the process of transcribing voice-recorded medical reports that are dictated by physicians, nurses and other healthcare practitioners. Medical reports can be v ...

on PCs.

Awards and honors

In 1979, Jean Ichbiah was designated a ''chevalier'' (knight) of the French Legion of Honour and a ''correspondent'' of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. He received a Certificate of Distinguished Service from the

for his work on Ada.

Death

Jean Ichbiah died from complications of a

brain tumor A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the Human brain, brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign ...

on January 26, 2007.

References

External links

*
Jean Ichbiah (1940-2007)
', press release by the Ada Resource Association
Programming pioneer dies — A tribute to Ada's Jean Ichbiah
, by Phil Manchester (2007-02-02)
Obituary
by

Bertrand Meyer Bertrand Meyer (; ; born 21 November 1950) is a French academic, author, and consultant in the field of computer languages. He created the Eiffel programming language and the concept of design by contract. Education and academic career Meyer ...

, as published in SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
Jean Ichbiah, 66; designed landmark computer language
(Boston Globe)

(Computerworld)

Ada 83 designer Jean Ichbiah dies
Ada User's Journal, Ada-Europe 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ichbiah, Jean David Ada (programming language) American computer scientists Knights of the Legion of Honour Neurological disease deaths in Massachusetts Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts Deaths from brain cancer in the United States French computer scientists 20th-century French Sephardi Jews Members of the French Academy of Sciences Programming language designers Programming language researchers 1940 births 2007 deaths