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

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 ...

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. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

s and

technical standard A technical standard is an established Social norm, 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 producti ...

Biography

Steele was born in

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

and graduated from the

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a Magnet school, magnet Latin schools, Latin Grammar schools, grammar State school, state school in Boston, Massachusetts. It has been in continuous operation since it was established on April 23, 1635. It is the old ...

in 1972. He received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

(BA) in

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

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(1975) and a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate 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 prac ...

(MS) and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(PhD) from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in

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

(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, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

of computer science at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and a

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 ...

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 wo ...

. Then he joined the

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of 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 instruc ...

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 Massachuse ...

, where he helped define and promote a

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

version of the

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

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., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

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 ...

to become a member of the

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

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 specificati ...

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

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

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 has been involved in artificial intelligence (AI) research at MIT since 1964. His research ha ...

on the subject of the language Lisp and its implementation (the

Lambda Papers The history of the programming language Scheme begins with the development of earlier members of the Lisp family of languages during the second half of the twentieth century. During the design and development period of Scheme, language designers G ...

). One of their most notable contributions was the design of the language Scheme. 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, s ...

and was the first to port

TeX Tex, TeX, TEX, may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Tex Earnhardt (1930–2020), U.S. businessman * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer ...

(from

WAITS WAITS is a heavily modified variant of Digital Equipment Corporation's Monitor operating system (later renamed to, and better known as, " TOPS-10") for the PDP-6 and PDP-10 mainframe computers, used at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Labor ...

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

'' (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, especi ...

TELNET Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

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 Knowledg ...

). Steele has served on accredited

s committees, including:

Ecma International Ecma International () is a Nonprofit organization, 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 ...

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

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...

, 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 (A ...

(for

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S2018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperli ...

). He was also a member of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

(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 High Performance Fortran (HPF) is an extension of Fortran 90 designed to support parallel computing, developed by the ''High Performance Fortran Forum'' (HPFF). The HPFF was convened and chaired by Ken Kennedy of Rice University. The first version ...

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 (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

, a high-performance language designed to obsolete Fortran. Steele participated in the development of the Verse programming language designed by

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...

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 Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT AI Lab ...

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

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it ...

, 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 nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

(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 ''Common Lisp the Language'' is a reference book by Guy L. Steele about a set of technical standards and programming languages named Common Lisp. History Before standardizing The first edition (Digital Press, 1984; ; 465 pages) was written by Gu ...

'' (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 the original ''The Java Language Specification'' with

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

and

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 serv ...

in 1988. He was named a Founding AAAI Fellow in 1990, an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

in 1994, a member of the

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

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 (The Academy) 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, and other ...

in 2002. He received the

Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award The Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award was an annual prize given to individuals who, in the opinion of the editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal, "made significant contributions to the advancement of software development." The Excellence in Program ...

in 2005.

Other activities

Steele is a

modern western square dance Modern western square dance (also called western square dance, contemporary western square dance, modern American square dance or modern square dance) is one of two American types of square dancing, along with traditional square dance. As a da ...

r and caller from Mainstream up through C3A, a member of

Tech Squares Tech Squares is a square and round dance club at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Est ...

, and a member of

Callerlab CALLERLAB is the international association of square dance callers, and is the largest square dance association in the United States. CALLERLAB provides guidance and education, certifying caller coaches, maintaining standardized lists of calls a ...

. 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 the g ...

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 SteelePoems (mostly parodies) from Guy Steele's student daysA 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 1994 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 John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni