Guy Lewis Steele Jr. (; born October 2, 1954) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

who has played an important role in designing and documenting several computer

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s and

technical standard A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, ...

Biography

Steele was born in

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

and graduated from the

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...

in 1972. He received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

(B.A.) in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

(1975) and a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

(M.S.) and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(Ph.D.) from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

(MIT) in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

(1977, 1980). He then worked as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree A docto ...

of computer science at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

and a

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

implementer at

Tartan Laboratories Tartan Laboratories, Inc., later renamed Tartan, Inc., was an American software company founded in 1981 and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that specialized in programming language compilers, especially for the language Ada. It was based on wor ...

. Then he joined the

supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...

company

Thinking Machines Thinking Machines Corporation was a supercomputer manufacturer and artificial intelligence (AI) company, founded in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1983 by Sheryl Handler and W. Daniel "Danny" Hillis to turn Hillis's doctoral work at the Massachuset ...

, where he helped define and promote a

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different f ...

version of the

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lispin ...

programming language named *Lisp (Star Lisp) and a parallel version of the language C named C*. In 1994, Steele joined

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...

and was invited by

Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...

to become a member of the

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

team after the language had been designed, since he had a track record of writing good

specifications A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificat ...

for extant languages. He was named a Sun Fellow in 2003. Steele joined

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ...

in 2010 when Oracle acquired

Works

While at MIT, Steele published more than two dozen papers with

Gerald Jay Sussman Gerald Jay Sussman (born February 8, 1947) is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his S.B. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT in 1968 and 1973 respectively. H ...

on the subject of the language Lisp and its implementation (the Lambda Papers). One of their most notable contributions was the design of the language

Scheme A scheme is a systematic plan for the implementation of a certain idea. Scheme or schemer may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Scheme'' (TV series), a BBC Scotland documentary series * The Scheme (band), an English pop band * ''The Schem ...

. Steele also designed the original command set of

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, ...

and was the first to port TeX (from WAITS to ITS). He has published papers on other subjects, including compilers, parallel processing, and constraint languages. One song he composed has been published in the official journal of the Association for Computing Machinery ''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers wi ...

'' (CACM) ("The Telnet Song", April 1984, a parody of the behavior of a series of

PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...

TELNET Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...

implementations written by

Mark Crispin Mark Reed Crispin (July 19, 1956 in Camden, New Jersey – December 28, 2012 in Poulsbo, Washington) is best known as the father of the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), having invented it in 1985 during his time at the Stanford Knowle ...

). Steele has served on accredited

s committees, including:

Ecma International Ecma International () is a nonprofit standards organization for information and communication systems. It acquired its current name in 1994, when the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) changed its name to reflect the organization ...

(formerly European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA)) TC39 (for the language

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripti ...

, for which he was editor of the first edition), X3J11 (for C), and X3J3 (for Fortran) and is, , chairman of

X3J13 X3J13 is the name of a technical committee which was part of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS, then named ''X3''). The X3J13 committee was formed in 1986 to draw up an American National Standards Institute ( ...

(for

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S20018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived fr ...

). He was also a member of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE) working group that produced the IEEE Standard for the language Scheme, IEEE Std 1178-1990. He represented Sun Microsystems in the High Performance Fortran Forum, which produced the High Performance Fortran specification in May, 1993. In addition to specifications of the language Java, Steele's work at Sun Microsystems has included research in parallel algorithms, implementation strategies, and architecture and software support. In 2005, Steele began leading a team of researchers at Sun developing a new language named

Fortress A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, a high-performance language designed to obsolete Fortran.

Books

In 1982, Steele edited ''The Hacker's Dictionary'' (Harper & Row, 1983; ), which was a print version of the

Jargon File The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET ...

. Steele and Samuel P. Harbison wrote ''C: A Reference Manual'', (

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari ...

, 1984; ), to provide a precise description of the language C, which Tartan Laboratories was trying to implement on a wide range of systems. Both authors participated in the

American National Standards Institute The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The orga ...

(ANSI) C standardization process; several revisions of the book were issued to reflect the new standard. On 16 March 1984, Steele published '' Common Lisp the Language'' (Digital Press; ; 465 pages). This first edition was the original specification of

(CLtL1) and served as the basis for the ANSI standard. Steele released a greatly expanded second edition in 1990, (1029 pages) which documented a near-final version of the ANSI standard. Steele, along with Charles H. Koelbel, David B. Loveman, Robert S. Schreiber, and Mary E. Zosel wrote ''The High Performance Fortran Handbook'' (MIT Press, 1994; ). Steele also coauthored all three editions of ''The Java Language Specification'' (Addison-Wesley, third ed. 2005; ) with

James Gosling James Gosling (born May 19, 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for the conception ...

, and Gilad Bracha.

Awards

Steele received the ACM

Grace Murray Hopper Award The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or ser ...

in 1988. He was named an ACM Fellow in 1994, a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

of the United States of America in 2001 and a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 2002. He received the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award in 2005.

Other activities

Steele is a modern western square dancer and caller from Mainstream up through C3A, a member of Tech Squares, and a member of Callerlab. Under the pseudonym ''Great Quux'', which was an old student nickname at the

and MIT, he has published light verse and "Crunchly" cartoons; a few of the latter appeared in ''The New Hacker's Dictionary''. He has also used his initials (GLS). In 1998, Steele solved the game

Teeko Teeko is an abstract strategy game invented by John Scarne in 1937 and rereleased in refined form in 1952 and again in the 1960s. Teeko was marketed by Scarne's company, John Scarne Games Inc.; its quirky name, he said, borrowed letters from Tic-t ...

via computer, showing what must occur if both players play wisely; he found that neither player can force a win. He also showed that the Advanced Teeko variant is a win for Black (again, assuming perfect play), as is one other variant, but the other fourteen variants are draws.

References

External links

* *
Sun/Oracle biographical page for SteeleA podcast interview with Guy Steele on Software Engineering Radio"Growing a Language", Keynote at the 1998 ACM OOPSLA Conferencetext

Guy Steele: Dan Friedman--Cool Ideas (Dan Friedman's 60th Birthday)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Guy L. Jr. 1954 births American computer scientists American technology writers Lisp (programming language) people Carnegie Mellon University faculty Emacs Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates MIT School of Engineering alumni Programming language designers Programming language researchers Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni