Adele Goldberg (born July 22, 1945) 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 ( ...

. She was one of the co-developers of the

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 l ...

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by ...

-80 and of various concepts related to

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

while a researcher at the

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...

Palo Alto Research Center PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

(PARC), in the 1970s.

Early life and education

Goldberg was born in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, on July 22, 1945. Her parents moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

when she was 11, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She enjoyed

problem solving Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...

and mathematics from a young age and was encouraged by her teachers to pursue mathematics. In 1967, she earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Interested in the subject of computing, Goldberg worked as an intern with IBM during the summer of her junior year of college, where she learned how to program unit record machines. After graduating, she attended the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, where she received her master's degree (in 1969) and a PhD (in 1973) in

information science Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. ...

. She completed her dissertation, "Computer-Assisted Instruction: The Application of Theorem-proving to Adaptive Response Analysis," while working as a research associate at Stanford University. She also served as a visiting researcher at Stanford.

Career

Goldberg began working at PARC in 1973 as a laboratory and research assistant, and eventually became manager of the System Concepts Laboratory where she,

Alan Kay Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) published by the Association for Computing Machinery 2012 is an American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) d ...

, and other researchers developed the programming language

-80. This language developed the object-oriented approach of

Simula 67 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 ALGOL 60 ...

and introduced a programming environment of overlapping windows on graphic display screens. Smalltalk's innovative format was simple to use and customizable. Objects could be transferred among applications with minimal effort. Goldberg and Kay were involved in the development of ''design templates'', forerunners of the

design pattern A design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander and has been adapted for various other disciplines, particularly software engineering. The " Gang of Four" b ...

s later used in software design. Along with Kay, she wrote the influential article "Personal Dynamic Media", which predicted a world in which ordinary individuals would use notebook computers to exchange, modify, and redistribute personal media. This paper outlined the vision for the

Dynabook The KiddiComp concept, envisioned by Alan Kay in 1968 while a PhD candidate, and later developed and described as the Dynabook in his 1972 proposal "A personal computer for children of all ages", outlines the requirements for a conceptual portabl ...

. Many of the concepts developed by Goldberg and her team at PARC became the basis for

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

s. According to Goldberg,

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

demanded a demonstration of the

System, which she at first refused to give him, although her superiors eventually compelled her to comply. Apple eventually took many of the ideas used in the

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...

and their implementations and used them as the basis for their Apple

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

. In 1988, Goldberg left PARC to cofound ParcPlace Systems, a company that created development tools for Smalltalk-based applications. There, she served as chairwoman and CEO until its 1995 merger with

Digitalk Digitalk (pronounced "digital kay") is an annual two-day technology conference organized by the Bulgarian business newspaper Capital weekly. Digitalk provides a place for discussion between creative professionals, investors, entrepreneurs, and ma ...

. She also cofounded Neometron, Inc. an Internet support provider in 1999. She works at Bullitics. She continues to pursue her interest in education, formulating computer science courses at community colleges in the United States and abroad. She is a board member and adviser at Cognito Learning Media, a provider of multimedia software for science education.

Achievements and accolades

Goldberg has been awarded a number of awards and honors for her contributions to the development of computer systems. She was president of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM) from 1984 to 1986, and, with Alan Kay and

Dan Ingalls Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr. (born 1944) is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementer of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine th ...

, received the ACM Software Systems Award in 1987. She was included in Forbes's "Twenty Who Matter". In 1994, she was inducted as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the ACM. She received PC Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. She was co-awarded the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award with Dan Ingalls in 2002. In 2010, she was admitted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's underg ...

. The

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact ...

(CHM) houses a collection of Goldberg's working documents, reports, publications and videotapes related to her work on the development of Smalltalk. In 2022, with Dan Ingalls, she was made a

of the CHM for promoting and codeveloping the Smalltalk programming environment and contributions advancing use of computers in education.

Selected publications

* (out of print; the ''blue book'' as known by Smalltalk people) * (the ''orange book'') * (the ''purple book'', a revision of the ''blue book'')

References

External links

* hosted by the

Some of Goldberg's publications
at

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in '' Times Higher Education ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Adele 1945 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American women scientists American computer scientists Jewish women scientists Jewish scientists American technology writers American women computer scientists Engineers from Illinois Engineers from Ohio Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Living people Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery Scientists at PARC (company) Scientists from California Scientists from Chicago Scientists from Cleveland University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Women technology writers