Summary
The significant role that the computer plays in the business world, schools, and homes signifies the impact it has on our daily lives. While many people are familiar with the Internet, e-commerce, the use of computers in science and industry, and basic computer
technology, the pioneering scientists who started this brave new world are generally less well known.
By describing the lives, work, and enduring influence of more than 150 computer pioneers, this new volume in the Notable Scientists series shows the human face of the technical world and also investigates the way individuals developed their ideas,
overcame technical and institutional challenges, collaborated with colleagues, and created
products or institutions of lasting importance. The cutting-edge, contemporary entries
explore a diverse group of inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries in the
computer science field.
Entries include:
- J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, creators of UNIVAC, the first commercially viable computer
- Jerry Yang and David Filo, founders of the Yahoo! information portal
- Grace Hopper, inventor of Cobol and the first woman to become a Navy admiral
- Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan, developers of the powerful and versatile Unix operating system
- Hubert Dreyfus, artificial intelligence critic
- Bjarne Stroustrup, developer of C++, the workhorse language of modern applications programming
- Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com
- Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll, founders of the online auction site
- Howard Rheingold, virtual community pioneer Esther Dyson, futurist and chairman of EDventure Holdings.
Specifications
Black-and-white photographs. Index. Appendixes. Bibliography. Glossary. Cross-references. Chronology.
About the Author(s)
Harry Henderson is a technical writer and editor specializing in computer languages and operating systems, Internet, history of science, and biography of scientists. He is the author of many computer-related books and manuals and juvenile non-fiction. For Facts On File, he has written Career Opportunities in Computers and Cyberspace, Gun Control, Privacy in the Information Age, and the Encyclopedia of Computer Science.