School of Niklaus Wirth: The Art of Simplicity

School of Wirth

Got myself an excellent book on the Art of Simplicity. Niklaus Wirth designed programming langauages like Pascal and sequels like Modula-2 and Oberon.  His style and dedication to simplicity in a clear writing and presentation style made a great impression on me.

This book gives unique insights in what has happened and is still happening in the school of Niklaus Wirth. Excellent book!

From the Back Cover

Niklaus Wirth is one of the great pioneers of computer technology and winner of the ACM’s A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious award in computer science. He has made substantial contributions to the development of programming languages, compiler construction, programming methodology, and hardware design. While working at ERH Zurich, he developed the languages Pascal and Modula-2. He also designed an early high performance workstation, the Personal Computer Lilith, and most recently the language and operating system Oberon.
While Wirth has often been praised for his excellent work as a language designer and engineer, he is also an outstanding educator – something for which he is not as well known. This book brings together prominent computer scientists to describe Wirth’s contributions to education. With the exception of some of his colleagues such as Professors Dijkstra, Hoare, and Rechenberg, all of the contributors to this book are students of Wirth. The essays provide a wide range of contemporary views on modern programming practice and also illuminate the one persistent and pervasive quality found in all his work: his unequivocal demand for simple solutions. The authors and editors hope to pass on their enthusiasm for simple engineering solutions along with their feeling for a man to whom they are all so indebted.

Contents

Editors: László Böszörményi, Jürg Gutknecht, Gustav Pomberger