On 8-10-2009 10:57, Invisible wrote:
>>> Well, THAT explains why the hell I can't even say his name out loud, 
>>> never mind spell it. :-P
>>
>> as for pronunciation try dike-strah.
> 
> Interesting. DJ seemed to think the K was silent.

well, then he was wrong in that respect.

> 
>>> Apparently he was quite clever though. I only know about him because 
>>> he apparently invented an algorithm for turning a series of 
>>> expression tokens into an actual expression tree...
>>
>> You should also know him because I mentioned him a few times here. He 
>> did a lot of work in concurrent programming (e.g. the P and V 
>> operation). IIRC he (or his team) implemented the first interrupt 
>> routines. He did a lot on designing programs from specification. Many 
>> of the algorithms he is most commonly known for were originally just 
>> examples of how to derive a program from a specification. You need 
>> more proof that thinking about your algorithm and documenting it might 
>> lead to new insights?
> 
> Actually, now I think about it, I do vaguely recall looking him up on 
> Wikipedia. Wasn't he one of those Ivory Tower theorists who thought that 
> you can actually specify what a program is supposed to do 
> mathematically, 

he was, sort of.

> and then formally prove that the program you wrote does it?

not really, because that would imply that you write the program first 
and then prove it. In fact it goes hand in hand.

With respect to the sort of above: he did a lot of very practical things 
that have seriously influenced a lot of people and a lot of hardware. So 
he was not only an Ivory tower guy. However, some of his work has that 
feeling. My opinion about that is that he made a very big mistake early 
on in defining his programming language (viz. guarded commands): he 
introduced the assignment. The talk I sometimes give about his work is 
therefore called: 'The assignment considered harmful'.

I am sure I said it before, if you want to improve your understanding of 
programming read 'A Discipline of Programming' and/or 'Selected Writings 
on Computing: A Personal Perspective'. The latter is a collection of his 
EWD papers.

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