David Wheeler (computer scientist)

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David Wheeler
Computer Lab, Cambridge
Darwin College, Cambridge
Thesis Automatic Computing With EDSAC  (1951)
Doctoral advisorMaurice Wilkes[2]
Doctoral students

David John Wheeler

ForMemRS (9 February 1927 – 13 December 2004)[10][11][12] was a computer scientist and professor of computer science at the University of Cambridge.[13][14][15][16]

Education

Wheeler was born in

Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1948.[18] He was awarded the world's first[19] PhD in computer science in 1951.[19][20]

Career

Wheeler's contributions to the field included work on the

subroutine (which they referred to as the closed subroutine), and gave the first explanation of how to design software libraries;[8] as a result, the jump to subroutine instruction was often called a Wheeler Jump. Wilkes published a paper in 1953 discussing relative addressing to facilitate the use of subroutines.[22] (However, Turing had discussed subroutines in a paper of 1945 on design proposals for the NPL ACE, going so far as to invent the concept of a return address stack.[23]
)

He was responsible for the implementation of the CAP computer, the first to be based on security capabilities. In cryptography, he was the designer of WAKE and the co-designer of the TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms together with Roger Needham. In 1950, with Maurice Wilkes, he used EDSAC to solve a differential equation relating to gene frequencies in a paper by Ronald Fisher.[24] This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field of biology.

He became a

University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
until his death.

Personal life

On 24 August 1957 Wheeler married astrophysics research student Joyce Margaret Blackler, who had used EDSAC for her own mathematical investigations as a research student from 1955. Together they had two daughters and a son.

Wheeler died of a

heart attack on 13 December 2004 while cycling home from the Computer Laboratory.[17]

Recognition and legacy

Wheeler:

The Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge annually holds the "Wheeler Lecture", a series of distinguished lectures named after him.[25]

Quotes

Wheeler is often quoted as saying "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection."[26] or "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection, except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."[27] This has been called the fundamental theorem of software engineering.

Another quotation attributed to him is "Compatibility means deliberately repeating other people's mistakes."[28]

References

  1. ^ a b "David John Wheeler: 2003 Fellow". Computer History Museum. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e David Wheeler at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. S2CID 30468228
    .
  4. ^ Hopper, Andy (1978). Local Area Computer Communication Networks (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  5. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94633. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  6. Wheeler, David J. (1994), A block sorting lossless data compression algorithm
    , Technical Report 124, Digital Equipment Corporation
  7. ISBN 978-3-540-60590-4
    .
  8. ^
    doi:10.1145/609784.609816. Archived from the original
    on 28 June 2015.
  9. S2CID 23064533
    .
  10. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0030
    .
  11. ^ "David Wheeler, 1927–2004". Obituaries. Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  12. ^ "Professor David Wheeler". Obituaries. The Independent. London. 22 December 2004. Retrieved 21 July 2011.[dead link]
  13. Microsoft Academic
  14. ISBN 978-3-540-58108-6
    .
  15. S2CID 20076347
    .
  16. ISSN 0090-6778
    .
  17. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94633. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  18. ^ David J. Wheeler at DBLP Bibliography Server Edit this at Wikidata
  19. ^
    ISBN 9780521766456
    .
  20. ISBN 0-262-23118-2
  21. doi:10.1049/pi-b-1.1958.0267
    – via ResearchGate.
  22. ^ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol 49, Pt 1, pgs 84-9
  23. ISBN 0-19-856593-3
  24. PMID 14791572
    .
  25. ^ "Computer Laboratory:Wheeler Lectures". Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  26. ^ Spinellis, Diomidis (2007). "Another level of indirection". In Oram, Andy; Wilson, Greg (eds.). Beautiful code. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.
    ISBN 978-0-596-51004-6
    .
  27. ^ Bjarne, Stroustrup. The C++ Programming Language - 4th edition. p. Preface.
  28. ISBN 9780470517840
    .

External links

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