Information | Details |
---|---|
Date of birth | July 28, 1954 |
Nationality | American |
Residence | Massachusetts, USA |
Education | Harvard University |
Occupation | Programming language designer |
Guy L. Steele Jr. is an American computer scientist and programming language designer. He is best known for his work on the development of the programming language Scheme, which is a dialect of Lisp. He is also known for his work on the Common Lisp standardization process, which resulted in the ANSI Common Lisp standard. Steele has also been involved in the development of other programming languages, such as Fortress, Java, and C#.
Steele has been a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1994, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 2003. He is a recipient of the ACM Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science, for his work on Scheme and Common Lisp. He is also a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, awarded by the President of the United States.
Guy L. Steele Jr. was born on July 28, 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975, and a Ph.D. in 1980.
Steele began his career as a research assistant at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He then joined the MIT Lisp Machine Project, where he worked on the development of the Lisp Machine operating system. In 1984, he joined the Programming Technology Division of Sun Microsystems, where he worked on the development of the programming language Scheme.
In 1985, Steele joined the Lisp standardization effort, which resulted in the ANSI Common Lisp standard. He was also involved in the development of other programming languages, such as Fortress, Java, and C#.
Steele has been a mentor to many prominent computer scientists, including Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project. He has also collaborated with computer scientist and entrepreneur Alan Kay, who is best known for his work on the Smalltalk programming language.
Steele is known for his famous quote, “Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.”
Steele has been criticized for his involvement in the development of the Java programming language, which has been accused of being overly complex and difficult to learn.
Steele is an avid sailor and has competed in several sailing competitions.
Steele is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.