Walter G. Bright (born March 10, 1959) is an American

computer programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the ''

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

'' computer game.

Early life and education

Bright is the son of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

pilot Charles D. Bright. He taught himself computer programming from the type-in programs in '' BASIC Computer Games''. Bright graduated from

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

in 1979 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

and a minor in Aeronautical Engineering. While at university he wrote the ''

'' wargame for the

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 ...

mainframe.

Career

Bright wrote Mattel Intellivision games while at Caltech, then worked as a mechanical engineer after graduation. After learning C in the early 1980s he ported ''Empire'' to the

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

, stating that C "might as well have been called EIL, for 'Empire Implementation Language.'" Bright developed the Datalight C compiler, also sold as Zorland C and later Zortech C. "said Walter Bright, Zortech's directory of technology Bright was the main developer of the Zortech C++ compiler (later Symantec C++, now Digital Mars C++), which was the first C++ compiler to translate source code directly to object code without using C as an intermediate.

D programming language

Bright is the creator of the D programming language. He has implemented compilers for several other languages, and is considered an expert in many areas related to compiler technology."Lang.NEXT 2012 Expert Panel: Native Languages"
Lang.Next Walter regularly writes scientific and magazine articles about compilers and programming and was a blogger for '' Dr. Dobb's Journal''. Around 2014, Bright wrote Warp, a fast C/C++ preprocessor written in D, for

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

References

External links

Walter Bright home page

Computerworld Interview with Walter Bright on D Programming Language
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Walter American computer programmers Living people Programming language designers 1959 births California Institute of Technology alumni