David Gries

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David Gries
David Gries in 2022
Born (1939-04-26) April 26, 1939 (age 84)
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma mater
Known forFirst text on
CS education
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsU.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory
Stanford University
University of Georgia
Cornell University
Doctoral advisorsFriedrich L. Bauer
Josef Stoer
Doctoral studentsSusan Graham (1971)
Susan Owicki (1975)
Jennifer Widom (1989)
T. V. Raman (1994)
Michael E. Caspersen (2007)[3]
Websitecs.cornell.edu/gries

David Gries (born April 26, 1939) is an American computer scientist at Cornell University, mainly known for his books The Science of Programming (1981) and A Logical Approach to Discrete Math (1993, with Fred B. Schneider).

He was associate dean for undergraduate programs at the Cornell University College of Engineering from 2003–2011. His research interests include programming methodology and related areas such as programming languages, related semantics, and logic. His son, Paul Gries, has been a co-author of an introductory textbook to computer programming using the language Python and is a teaching stream professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto.

Life

Gries earned a

Queens College in 1960. He spent the next two years working as a programmer-mathematician for the United States Naval Weapons Laboratory
, where he met his wife, Elaine.

He earned a

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1963. While at Illinois, Gries worked with Manfred Paul and Ruediger Wiehle to write a full compiler for the language ALGOL 60 for the IBM 7090 mainframe computer. He earned his Dr. rer. nat. in 1966 from the TH München, studying under Friedrich L. Bauer and Josef Stoer
.

Gries is member emeritus of IFIP Working Group 2.3,[6] whose aim is to increase programmers' ability to compose programs, and he edited Programming Methodology: a Collection of Articles by Members of IFIP WG2.3, [7] which highlights the work of this group in its first ten years.

Gries was an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1966–1969 and then became an associate professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He spent the next 30 years there, including time as chair of the computer science department from 1982–1987.

Gries was an advocate of treating formal methods in programming as a core computer science topic and teaching it to undergraduates, a stance that found large amounts of debate within the computer science education community.[8]

Gries had a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984–1985. He spent 1999–2002 at the University of Georgia in Athens and returned to Cornell in January 2003.

He is author, co-author, or editor of seven textbooks and 75 research papers. His papers are archived at Cornell.[9]

As of 2021, he lives in Ithaca, New York.

Textbooks

Gries' 1971 work Compiler Construction for Digital Computers was the first textbook to be published on designing and implementing

Jeffrey D. Ullman's 1977 volume Principles of Compiler Design.[11] Nonetheless, Dutch computer scientist Dick Grune has written of Compiler Construction for Digital Computers that "entire generations of compiler constructors have grown up with it and they have not regretted it."[10]

The textbook An Introduction to Programming: A Structured Approach Using PL/I and PL/C was co-written with his computer scientist college

program correctness, becoming the first introductory textbook to do so.[13]

In 1981, Gries published The Science of Programming, a textbook that covers

abstract data types discussed other than the simple array.[14] Writing in Communications of the ACM, computer scientist Jon Bentley
said The Science of Programming was "an excellent introduction to the field" and said that professional programmers could benefit from studying it and using program verification techniques in their own projects.[16]

A Logical Approach to Discrete Math was co-authored with Fred B. Schneider and published in 1993.[8] A paper from a faculty member at Southwestern University advocating teaching the subjects the book covered to first-year undergraduates and called it "an ideal text covering predicate calculus for use in programming."[17] Similarly, a faculty member at Pepperdine University stated that, "My experience with A Logical Approach to Discrete Math convinced me that formal methods are easily mastered at the undergraduate level."[8]

Selected works

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Taylor L. Booth Education Award". IEEE-CS. April 3, 2018. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  2. ^ "ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award". ACM. 1995. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  3. ^ "David Gries". mathgenealogy.org. Mathematics Genealogy Project. Retrieved August 7, 2022.
  4. . The first text on compiler writing.
  5. ^ a b c d e "David Gries' Compiler book Source". Computer History Exhibits. Stanford University. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
  6. ^ "IFIP Working Group 2.3 on Programming Methodology". Archived from the original on June 30, 2022. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  7. ^
    S2CID 29484154
    .
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ "David Gries papers, #16-13-4524. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library". Retrieved October 12, 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Grune, Dick (May 20, 2010). "Compiler Construction before 1980". dickgrune.com.
  11. ^ "ACM Turing Award Honors Innovators Who Shaped the Foundations of Programming Language Compilers and Algorithms" (Press release). Association for Computing Machinery. March 31, 2021.
  12. ^ "Computer Text Is Updated". The Ithaca Journal. June 30, 1975. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ a b c "Cornell Department of Computer Science -50 Years of Innovation". Cornell Dept of Computer Science. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  14. ^
    S2CID 40374643
    .
  15. .
  16. ^ .
  17. .
  18. ^ "Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching". Cornell Bowers CIS, Cornell. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  19. ^ "Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year". CEAA Alumni Association, College of Engineering, Cornell. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  20. ^ "ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium Top Ten Papers of All Time Award". SIGCSE. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  21. .
  22. ^ "Awards". Cornell Bowers CIS - Computer Science. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  23. ^ The Cornell CS Department Timeline[13] announces this doctorate
  24. ^ The Cornell CS Department Timeline[13] announces this doctorate
  25. ^ "Weiss Presidential Fellow (for contributions to undergraduate education)". Cornell. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  26. ^ "Audio System for Technical Readings" (PDF) (PhD thesis). Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  27. ^ "ACM Fellows". ACM. 1994. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  28. ^ "David Gries: ACM Fellow". ACM. 1994. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  29. ^ "Distinguished Service Award". CRA. January 16, 2015. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  30. ^ "Historic Fellows, AAAS". AAAS. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  31. ^ "David Gries - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". 1983. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  32. ^ "ACM Programming Systems and Languages Paper Award". ACM. 1977. Retrieved July 7, 2022.

External links