Per Brinch Hansen
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Per Brinch Hansen (13 November 1938 – 31 July 2007) was a Danish- 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 ...
known for his work in
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
s, concurrent programming and parallel and
distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...
.


Biography


Early life and education

Per Brinch Hansen was born in
Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the region of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of less tha ...
, an enclave surrounded by
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
,
Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
. His father, Jørgen Brinch Hansen, worked as a civil engineer, becoming a leading expert in
soil mechanics Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids (usually air and ...
, and later accepting a professorship at
Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...
. His mother, Elsebeth Brinch Hansen (née Ring), was the daughter of Danish composer Oluf Ring and worked as a hairdresser before marrying. Brinch Hansen attended Skt. Jørgens Gymnasium and then studied electrical engineering at Technical University of Denmark where he sought an area to pursue that "was still in its pioneering phase" on the belief that "If a subject was being taught, it was probably already too late to make fundamental contributions." After a seven-week student internship at
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
's Hursley Laboratory in England, he decided to dedicate his career to computers. Initially focused on computer construction, reading a book on the
IBM 7030 Stretch The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964."Designed by Seymour Cray, the CDC 6600 was almost three tim ...
project that described computer organization from a programmer's point of view refocused his interest toward becoming a computer architect.


Regnecentralen

After completing a
Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...
degree in
electronic engineering Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flo ...
in 1963, Brinch Hansen landed a job at
Regnecentralen Regnecentralen (RC) was the first Denmark, Danish computer company, founded on 12 October 1955. Through the 1950s and 1960s, they designed a series of computers, originally for their own use, and later to be sold commercially. Descendants of thes ...
, then a research institution under The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (Akademiet for de Tekniske Videnskaber), working in the compiler group, led by
Peter Naur Peter Naur (25 October 1928 – 3 January 2016) was a Danish computer science pioneer and 2005 Turing Award winner. He is best remembered as a contributor, with John Backus, to the Backus–Naur form (BNF) notation used in describing the syntax ...
and Jørn Jensen. There, his first significant project was writing a
parser Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is a process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar by breaking it into parts. The term '' ...
for a
COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...
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 ...
for the
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
3003 computer. Subsequently, he wrote a file system to be used during
execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...
of the compiled COBOL programs, later observing: In 1966, Brinch Hansen moved to Henning Isaksson's hardware group at Regnecentralen, by then a company with shareholders. Together with Peter Kraft, he defined the computer architecture and
instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, s ...
for Regnecentralen's third computer, the RC 4000, using
ALGOL 60 ALGOL 60 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1960'') is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It followed on from ALGOL 58 which had introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them, representing a ...
as a
hardware description language In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, usually to design application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and to progra ...
to produce a
formal specification In computer science, formal specifications are mathematically based techniques whose purpose is to help with the implementation of systems and software. They are used to describe a system, to analyze its behavior, and to aid in its design by verify ...
. Inexperienced with
multiprogramming In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result ...
, he used a copy of '' Cooperating Sequential Processes''
Edsger Dijkstra Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ( ; ; 11 May 1930 – 6 August 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, programmer, software engineer, mathematician, and science essayist. Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dijkstra studied mathematics and physics and the ...
had sent him to understand process synchronization using
semaphore Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arra ...
s, and then implemented a specialized RC 4000 real-time
monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...
for use in managing a fertilizer plant. Peter Kraft and
Charles Simonyi Charles Simonyi (; , ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian Americans, Hungarian-American software architect. He introduced the graphical user interface to Bill Gates for the first time who later described it as the first of two revolutiona ...
, who was still a teenager, wrote a
p-code Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (normal ...
interpreter Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...
and data logging task programs that were compiled to p-code. In the summer of 1967, Brinch Hansen left Regnecentralen's hardware group to become head of RC 4000
software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...
, where he led a team including Jørn Jensen, Peter Kraft and Søren Lauesen in defining a general-purpose RC 4000 multiprogramming system, with a goal to avoid developing a custom
real-time control Real-time computing (RTC) is the computer science term for hardware and software systems subject to a "real-time constraint", for example from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within specified time constrai ...
operating system for every RC 4000 installation, and to support
batch processing Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...
and
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...
as well. The resulting system was not a complete operating system, but a small kernel providing the mechanisms upon which operating systems for different purposes could be built. By the spring of 1969, a well-documented, reliable version of the RC 4000 multiprogramming system was running.


Carnegie Mellon University

In late 1970, Brinch Hansen moved to
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
, accepting an invitation from
Alan Perlis Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was t ...
to visit the department of
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, ...
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 ...
as a research associate, while he wrote the first systematic textbook on operating system principles. During this time, at the 1971 Summer School in Marktoberdorf and a symposium in
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
, Brinch Hansen,
Tony Hoare Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare (; born 11 January 1934), also known as C. A. R. Hoare, is a British computer scientist who has made foundational contributions to programming languages, algorithms, operating systems, formal verification, and ...
and Dijkstra began to discuss ideas that evolved into the
monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...
concept. In the spring of 1972, after reading about the
class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...
concept invented by
Ole-Johan Dahl Ole-Johan Dahl (12 October 1931 – 29 June 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist. Dahl was a professor of computer science at the University of Oslo and is considered to be one of the fathers of Simula and object-oriented programming along wi ...
and
Kristen Nygaard Kristen Nygaard (27 August 1926 – 10 August 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer, and politician. Internationally, Nygaard is acknowledged as the co-inventor of object-oriented programming and the programming ...
for
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 ...
67, Brinch Hansen completed his text with a chapter on resource protection that proposed the first monitor notation, using shared classes. In 1973, ''Operating System Principles'' was published, becoming the first comprehensive textbook on operating systems.


California Institute of Technology

In July 1972, Brinch Hansen joined the faculty of the
California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...
(Caltech) as an Associate Professor of computer science, where he began work on defining a
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 ...
with concurrent processes and monitors. In April 1974, he distributed a technical report on Concurrent Pascal. A Concurrent Pascal
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 ...
for the PDP 11/45, written by Brinch Hansen's doctoral student, Al Hartmann, was released in January 1975. Subsequently, Brinch Hansen began writing model operating systems in Concurrent Pascal, to evaluate the language. In May 1975, he completed Solo, a single-user operating system for development of Concurrent Pascal programs. Next, he rewrote the original RC 4000 real-time scheduler in Concurrent Pascal, taking three days to write it, and three hours of machine time to systematically test it. When the Caltech computer science department shifted focus toward computer engineering and away from programming Brinch Hansen decided to leave, rather than to seek tenure there.


University of Southern California

In 1976, Brinch Hansen chose
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
(USC) for his next post, so that his family could remain in their Altadena home. Joining the faculty as a tenured full professor, and first chair of a newly created computer science department, he led efforts to identify and attract top-notch faculty to build a first rate department. By 1980, USC's computer science department was ranked by the National Research Council as one of the top ten in the US. While at USC, Brinch Hansen wrote his second book, ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs,'' based on his work developing operating systems with Concurrent Pascal. Published in 1977, it was the first book on concurrent programming. In 1978, Brinch Hansen became the first computer scientist awarded the Doctor Technices degree, the highest academic distinction within engineering and technological science in Denmark, for the work documented in ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs''. Later in 1978, Brinch Hansen published the Distributed Processes language concept, proposing the use of
remote procedure call In distributed computing, a remote procedure call (RPC) is when a computer program causes a procedure (subroutine) to execute in a different address space (commonly on another computer on a shared computer network), which is written as if it were a ...
s to synchronize processes running across a microcomputer network. Also in 1978, L. J. Sevins and Steve Goings from
Mostek Mostek Corporation was a semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturer, founded in 1969 by L. J. Sevin, Louay E. Sharif, Richard L. Petritz and other ex-employees of Texas Instruments. At its peak in the late 1970s, Mostek held an 85% market sh ...
visited Brinch Hansen at USC, where he outlined a low-cost
multiprocessor Multiprocessing (MP) is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. The ...
architecture. Mostek began a project to implement such a multiprocessor, with Brinch Hansen working as a consultant. Brinch Hansen developed a new concurrent programming language, Edison, for the project. As with the RC 4000 project, Edison was also used as a formal specification language for the hardware. Mostek got an initial 4-node multiprocessor working and Brinch Hansen wrote a portable Edison compiler on a PDP 11/55, but shortly after,
United Technologies United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational corporation, multinational list of conglomerates, conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous are ...
acquired Mostek and cancelled the project. In 1982, Brinch Hansen moved the Edison system to an
IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a ...
(PC), and then published his third book, ''Programming a Personal Computer''. In 1982, Brinch Hansen was named the first Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer Science at USC.


University of Copenhagen

In 1984, feeling homesick for Denmark after 14 years abroad, Brinch Hansen left USC and joined the faculty of the
University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...
as a Professor of datalogy. In 1985, he was elected a Fellow 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). Later in 1985, his fourth book ''Brinch Hansen on Pascal Compilers'', which he used for his own compiler course, was published. While designing a multicomputer operating system for Danish company GN Elmi, Brinch Hansen concluded he needed a new language, this time leveraging the message passing paradigm of Hoare's CSP. The resulting language, Joyce, removed a major limitation of CSP by introducing parallel
recursion Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in m ...
. Brinch Hansen developed a portable implementation on an IBM PC.


Syracuse University

After finding that neither he nor his family felt at home in Denmark, Brinch Hansen decided to return to the US, but discovered that their immigration status required them to do so very quickly. Brinch Hansen contacted John Reynolds at
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
and in 1987 he joined the faculty as a Distinguished Professor. Working with his student Rangachari Anand, Joyce was moved to an Encore Multimax 320 multiprocessor at SU's Northeast Parallel Architectures Center. Recognizing the scaling limitations of multiprocessors, however, Brinch Hansen sought a suitable multicomputer for further work. Acquiring a
Meiko Computing Surface Meiko Scientific Ltd. was a British supercomputer company based in Bristol, founded by members of the design team working on the Inmos transputer microprocessor. History In 1985, when Inmos management suggested the release of the transputer be ...
in 1989, he began experimenting with scientific applications by developing parallel programs for Householder's method (reduction) and then ''N''-body simulation as learning exercises, and was surprised to find that both programs had nearly identical control structures. Concluding that both fit an "all-pairs paradigm," he then focused on exploring reusable parallel algorithm structures he termed "programming paradigms" or "generic programs" (later, popularly known as "
design patterns ''Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software'' (1994) is a software engineering book describing software design patterns. The book was written by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides, with a fore ...
"). In 1995, Brinch Hansen's fifth book, ''Studies in Computational Science: Parallel Programming Paradigms'' was published, with programs rewritten in
SuperPascal SuperPascal is an imperative, concurrent computing programming language developed by Per Brinch Hansen. It was designed as a ''publication language'': a thinking tool to enable the clear and concise expression of concepts in parallel programmin ...
, a fully implemented publication language he created for parallel algorithms.


Last years

In his later years, Brinch Hansen published a retrospective of his most important papers, ''The Search for Simplicity'' (1996), a text for a course in programming for non-majors, ''Programming for Everyone in Java'' (1999), a retrospective on the evolution of operating systems, ''Classic Operating Systems: From Batch Processing to Distributed Systems'' (2001), and a retrospective on the evolution of concurrent programming, ''The Origin of Concurrent Programming: From Semaphores to Remote Procedure Calls'' (2002). He self-published a 2004 memoir, ''A Programmer's Story: The Life of a Computer Pioneer'', on his website. In 2002, Brinch Hansen was awarded the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award "For pioneering development in operating systems and concurrent programming exemplified by work on the RC 4000 multiprogramming system, monitors, and Concurrent Pascal." On July 31, 2007, Brinch Hansen died, shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.


Personal life

Brinch Hansen met his wife Milena (née Hrastar) on a class trip to Yugoslavia in 1962. They married in 1965 and had two children, daughter Mette and son Thomas.


Scientific contributions and influence

In a career spanning five decades, Brinch Hansen made seminal contributions in the areas of operating systems, concurrent computing and parallel and distributed computing that were influential in shaping the development of those fields and advancing them from ad hoc techniques to systematic engineering disciplines. The influence of his work was amplified by his "relentless search for simplicity," his insistence on clarity, writing and rewriting his papers many times before publishing them, becoming "one of the best explainers in the business," and his commitment to testing concepts in working systems – Brinch Hansen implemented and distributed working systems for new concepts he developed, noting:


Operating systems

The RC 4000 multiprogramming system introduced the now-standard concept of an operating system kernel and the separation of mechanism and policy in operating system design. Modern
microkernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...
architectures trace their roots to the extensible nucleus architecture of the RC 4000. Improving microkernel performance was a major theme in operating system research for three decades after the RC 4000. Brinch Hansen's text, ''Operating System Principles'', was the first comprehensive textbook on operating systems. Eventually published in six languages (English, Japanese, German, Czech, Polish and Serbo-Croatian), it remained in print for decades, and years after the RC 4000 system it described had become outdated. In 1990, nearly two decades after its initial publication, P. J. Plauger reviewed it, saying: In 2005,
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 membe ...
(ACM) members voted ''Operating System Principles'' a top 25 classic book, in a survey to choose out-of-print classic books to add to the ACM Digital Library. ''Operating System Principles'' ranked 15th in the survey, appearing on 8.8% of ballots. It is no
available from the ACM Digital Library
Using Concurrent Pascal, Brinch Hansen demonstrated that it was feasible to fully implement operating systems in high level languages, and that doing so reduced the development effort by one to two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, entire operating systems could be published, and understood in their entirety. Brinch Hansen did precisely that in ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs'', leading Roy Maddux and Harlan Mills to declare:


Concurrent programming

Brinch Hansen and Hoare developed the monitor concept. Brinch Hansen published the first monitor notation, adopting the class concept of Simula 67, and invented a queueing mechanism. Hoare refined the rules of process resumption. Brinch Hansen created the first implementation of monitors, in Concurrent Pascal. More than a dozen additional monitor-based languages had been created by 1990: Simone,
Modula The Modula programming language is a descendant of the Pascal language. It was developed in Switzerland, at ETH Zurich, in the mid-1970s by Niklaus Wirth, the same person who designed Pascal. The main innovation of Modula over Pascal is a mo ...
, CSP/k, CCNPascal, PLY, Pascal Plus, Mesa, SB-Mod, Concurrent Euclid, Pascalc, Concurrent C, Emerald, Real-time Euclid, Pascal-FC, Turing Plus, Predula. Concurrent Pascal was the first concurrent programming language: the first language developed specifically for concurrent programming, and more importantly, the first language to demonstrate that it was possible to incorporate secure, high-level facilities for concurrency, where the system could guarantee that processes access disjoint sets of variables only and do not interfere with each other in time dependent ways. Hoare described it as "an outstanding example of the best of academic research in this area." Source and portable code for Concurrent Pascal and the Solo operating system were distributed to at least 75 companies and 100 universities in 21 countries, resulting in its widespread adoption, porting and adaptation in both industry and academia. Greg Andrews observed that Concurrent Pascal and monitors "greatly influenced most subsequent concurrent language proposals." Brinch Hansen's ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs'' was the first book on concurrent programming, and was eventually published in three languages (English, Japanese, and German). More than a dozen years after its publication, P. J. Plauger observed: In 2005, ACM members voted ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs'' a top 25 classic book, ranking it 18th in the survey, and appearing on 8% of ballots. It is no
available from the ACM Digital Library


Distributed computing and remote procedure call

Remote procedure call In distributed computing, a remote procedure call (RPC) is when a computer program causes a procedure (subroutine) to execute in a different address space (commonly on another computer on a shared computer network), which is written as if it were a ...
s used in modern operating systems trace their roots back to the RC 4000 multiprogramming system, which used a request-response communication protocol for process synchronization. In his 1978 paper on distributed processes, Brinch Hansen proposed a language for distributed computing based on external requests consisting of procedure calls between processes. This later became known in an operating system context as the remote procedure call. Later, Brinch Hansen developed two languages extending Hoare's CSP message-passing paradigm with parallel recursion, and showed how to efficiently implement such.


Honors and awards

* Doctor Technices,
Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...
, for The Architecture of Concurrent Programs, 1978 * First Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer Science,
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
, 1982 *
IEEE Fellow , 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 ot ...
, 1985 * Distinguished Professor,
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
, 1987 * Chancellor's Medal,
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
, 1989 * IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, ''for pioneering development in operating systems and concurrent programming exemplified by work on the RC 4000 multiprogramming system, monitors, and Concurrent Pascal'', 2002


Programming languages

* Concurrent Pascal (1975) * Distributed Processes (1978) * Edison (1981) * Joyce (1987) *
SuperPascal SuperPascal is an imperative, concurrent computing programming language developed by Per Brinch Hansen. It was designed as a ''publication language'': a thinking tool to enable the clear and concise expression of concepts in parallel programmin ...
(1993)


Quotations

* ''Writing is a rigorous test of simplicity: It is just not possible to write convincingly about ideas that cannot be understood'' * ''Programming is the art of writing essays in crystal clear prose and making them executable''


Publications

;Books * ''Operating System Principles'' (1973, ) * ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs'' (1977, ) * ''Programming a Personal Computer'' (1983, ) * ''Brinch Hansen on Pascal Compilers'' (1985, ) * ''Studies in Computational Science: Parallel Programming Paradigms'' (1995, ) * ''The Search for Simplicity: Essays in Parallel Programming'' (1996, ) * ''Programming for Everyone in Java'' (1999, ) * ''Classic Operating Systems: From Batch Processing to Distributed Systems'' (editor, 2001, ) * ''The Origin of Concurrent Programming: From Semaphores to Remote Procedure Calls'' (editor, 2002, ) * ''A Programmer's Story: The Life of a Computer Pioneer'' (2004, available at http://brinch-hansen.net/) ;Selected papers
The Cobol compiler for the Siemens 3003
''BIT'' 6, 1 (1966), 1–23 (with Roger House)
Design Considerations for the RC 4000 Computer
Regnecentralen, Copenhagen, Denmark (1966) (with Peter Kraft)
The logical structure of the RC 4000 computer
''BIT'' 7, 3 (1967), 191– 199
The RC 4000 real-time control system at Pulawy
''BIT'' 7, 4 (1967), 279–288
RC 4000 Software: Multiprogramming System, Part I General Description
Regnecentralen, Copenhagen, Denmark (1969) 13–52
RC 4000 Software: Multiprogramming System (Complete)
Regnecentralen, Copenhagen, Denmark (1969)
RC 4000 Computer: Reference Manual
Regnecentralen, Copenhagen, Denmark (1969)
The nucleus of a multiprogramming system
''Communications of the ACM'' 13, 4 (April 1970), 238–242
An outline of a course on operating system principles
in ''Operating Systems Techniques'', Proceedings of a Seminar at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, August–September 1971. C. A. R. Hoare and R. H. Perrott, Eds. Academic Press, New York (1972), 29–36
Structured multiprogramming
''Communications of the ACM'' 15, 7 (July 1972), 574–578
Shared Classes
in ''Operating System Principles'', Section 7.2 Class Concept, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, (July 1973), 226–232
Testing a multiprogramming system
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 3, 2 (April–June), 145–150
The programming language Concurrent Pascal
''IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering'' 1, 2 (June 1975), 199–207
The Solo operating system: a Concurrent Pascal program
''Software— Practice and Experience'' 6, 2 (April–June 1976), 141–149
The Solo operating system: processes, monitors and classes
''Software— Practice and Experience'' 6, 2 (April–June 1976), 165–200
The Programmer as a Young Dog
English translation by the author of Programmøren som hvalp, In ''Niels Ivar Bech—en epoke i edbudviklingen i Danmark'', P. Sveistrup, P. Naur, H.B. Hansen, and C. Gram, Eds., (in Danish), Data, Copenhagen, Denmark, (1976), 65–68
Experience with modular concurrent programming
''IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering'' 3, 2 (March 1977), 156–159
Design Principles
in ''The Architecture of Concurrent Programs'', Chapter 1 Design Principles, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, (July 1977), 3–14
Network: A multiprocessor program
''IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering'' 4, 3 (May 1978), 194–199
Distributed processes: A concurrent programming concept
''Communications of the ACM'' 21, 11 (November 1978), 934–941
Reproducible testing of monitors
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 8, 6 (November–December), 721–729
A keynote address on concurrent programming
Keynote address for the ''IEEE Computer Software & Applications Conference'', Chicago, IL, November 1978, ''Computer'' 12, 5 (May 1979), 50–56
The Design of Edison
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 11, 4 (April 1981), 363–396
Joyce—A programming language for distributed systems
''Software— Practice and Experience'' 17, 1 (January 1987), 29–50
The Joyce Language Report
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 19, 6 (June 1989), 553–578
A multiprocessor implementation of Joyce
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 19, 6 (June 1989), 579–592
The nature of parallel programming
Inaugural Symposium at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, March 1989, In ''Natural and Artificial Parallel Computation'', M.A. Arbib and J.A. Robinson, Eds. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, (1990), 31–46
The linear search rediscovered
''Structured Programming'' 11, (1990), 53–55
Householder reduction of linear equations
''ACM Computing Surveys'' 24, 2 (June 1992), 185–194
Monitors and Concurrent Pascal: A personal history
''2nd ACM Conference on the History of Programming Languages'', Cambridge, MA, April 1993, In ''SIGPLAN Notices'' 28, 3 (March 1993), 1–35
Model programs for computational science: A programming methodology for multicomputers
''Concurrency—Practice and Experience'' 5, 5 (August 1993), 407–423
Parallel Cellular Automata: A model program for computational science
''Concurrency—Practice and Experience'' 5, 5 (August 1993), 425–448
Multiple-length division revisited: A tour of the minefield
''Software: Practice and Experience'' 24, (June 1994), 579–601
SuperPascal—A publication language for parallel scientific computing
''Concurrency—Practice and Experience'' 6, 5 (August 1994), 461–483
Interference control in SuperPascal—A block-structured language parallel language
''The Computer Journal'' 37, 5 (1994), 399–406
Efficient parallel recursion
''SIGPLAN Notices'' 30, 12 (December 1995), 9–16
The All-Pairs Pipeline
in ''Studies in Computational Science'', Chapter 4: The all-pairs pipeline. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, (March 1995), 73–89
Balancing a Pipeline
in ''Studies in Computational Science'', Chapter 5: Balancing a pipeline. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, (March 1995), 90–100
Java's insecure parallelism
''SIGPLAN Notices'' 34, 4 (April 1999), 38–45
The evolution of operating systems
In ''Classic Operating Systems: From Batch Processing to Distributed Systems'', P. Brinch Hansen, Ed., Springer-Verlag, New York (2001)
The invention of concurrent programming
In ''The Origin of Concurrent Programming: From Semaphores to Remote Procedure Calls'', P. Brinch Hansen, Ed., Springer-Verlag, New York (2002)


See also

*
List of pioneers in computer science This is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do. Pioneers ~ Items marked with a tilde are circa dates. See also * Computer Pioneer Award * IEEE John von ...


References


External links

* – memoirs, selected papers, detailed bibliography
Early papers by Per Brinch Hansen (1966–1970)
at Danish Datamuseum {{DEFAULTSORT:Brinch Hansen, Per 1938 births 2007 deaths People from Frederiksberg Technical University of Denmark alumni Danish computer scientists Danish emigrants to the United States American computer scientists Syracuse University faculty Computer systems researchers Programming language researchers Fellows of the IEEE Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Kernel programmers