Adele Goldberg (computer scientist)

Last updated

Dr. Adele Goldberg
Adele Goldberg at PyCon 2007.jpg
Dr. Adele Goldberg at Python Conference (PyCon) 2007
Born (1945-07-22) July 22, 1945 (age 79)
Alma mater University of Michigan
University of Chicago
Known for Smalltalk System
Scientific career
Fields Computer science
Institutions Xerox PARC, Association for Computing Machinery, Stanford University
Thesis Computer-Assisted Instruction: The Application of Theorem-proving to Adaptive Response Analysis  (1973)

Adele Goldberg (born July 22, 1945) is an American computer scientist. She was one of the co-developers of the programming language Smalltalk-80, which is a computer software that simplifies the programming language, and has been the basis of knowledge and structure for many other programming languages such as Python, C, and Java. [1] She also developed many concepts related to object-oriented programming while a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), in the 1970s.

Contents

Early life and education

Goldberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 22, 1945. Her parents moved to Chicago, Illinois when she was 11, where she spent the rest of her childhood. [2] She enjoyed problem solving and mathematics from a young age. In High School, she was in Student Council, but then realized this wasn't her area of interest. She was encouraged by her teachers to pursue mathematics. [2] In 1967, she earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. [3] In 1963, Goldberg parted ways from Chicago for a few years and attended the University of Michigan. She considered Ann Arbor a big change from her Chicago lifestyle, mentioning her hardships in adapting to life separated for the first time from her twin sister. Mathematics as a degree shielded her for the social instability of the country– as President John F. Kennedy had been murdered that same year. Math and science were an opportunity for her to dedicate time into her studies and avoid social situations. She spent three years there, went to Europe and missed one semester, and then returned to finish her degree. [4]

Interested in the subject of computing, Goldberg worked as an intern with IBM during the summer of her junior year of college, where she learned how to program unit record machines. [5] After graduating, she attended the University of Chicago, where she received her master's degree (in 1969) and a PhD (in 1973) in information science. [3] She completed her dissertation, "Computer-Assisted Instruction: The Application of Theorem-proving to Adaptive Response Analysis," while working as a research associate at Stanford University. [6] She also served as a visiting researcher at Stanford. [7] In California, during a meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Users in Education (ACM SIGCSE), Adele met John Stoch, a XEROX employee, where they talked about a potential computer designed for children's education, called Dynabook. [8]

Career

1973

Goldberg began working at PARC in 1973 as a laboratory and research assistant, and eventually became manager of the System Concepts Laboratory where she, Alan Kay, and other researchers developed the programming language Smalltalk-80. [6] At the time, it was not common for female computer scientists, nonetheless, Alan Kay, the leader of the design and development of first modern computer interface, hired a pregnant Adele Goldberg. This language developed the object-oriented approach of Simula 67 and introduced a programming environment of overlapping windows on graphic display screens. This new “personal computer,” with its key features including portability, network connection, communication with others, build models, and content sharing capabilities was the objective of Smalltalk at the time.

Smalltalk's innovative format was simple to use and customizable. Objects could be transferred among applications with minimal effort. [6] [7] Goldberg and Kay were involved in the development of design templates, forerunners of the design patterns later used in software design. [9] Adele says that Smalltalk took inspiration from another language, which was created in the Sixties, Simula. Smalltalk 72, one of the iterations, was the first to feature low-level animations, and music. Adele and her team paired up with Doug Engelbart, the original inventor of the mouse, to see the possibilities of its incorporation to Smalltalk with the goal of better access, avoiding command lines with funny syntax. Smalltalk 72 was Adele's first opportunity to “teach” and explain this model to anyone. [10]

1976

Along with Kay, she wrote the influential article "Personal Dynamic Media", which predicted a world in which ordinary individuals would use notebook computers to exchange, modify, and redistribute personal media. [11] This paper outlined the vision for the Dynabook. She emphasized the vision of a small device, being able to be carried anywhere, that could give out information in quantities approaching that of human sensory systems, where the output had to be higher quality than newspapers. [12] This paper outlined the vision for Dynabook.

1981

Adele was very passionate about Smalltalk, spending lots of time promoting her creation. In 1981, BYTE magazine featured Smalltalk, where she personally helped write and edit an article, with the goal of introducing and normalizing object-oriented programming as a necessity in today's developing and technologically dependent society. [13]

1984

Many of the concepts developed by Goldberg and her team at PARC became the basis for graphical user interfaces. According to Goldberg, Steve Jobs demanded a demonstration of the Smalltalk System, which she at first refused to give him, although her superiors eventually compelled her to comply. [14] Apple eventually took many of the ideas used in the Xerox Alto and their implementations and used them as the basis for their Apple Macintosh desktop environment. Afterwards, Steve Jobs was shown an early version of Goldberg's Smalltalk (Model 76 at the time), where he immediately incorporated it into Apple's new Computer, the Macintosh. It led to a commercial which aired in 1984, during the Super Bowl XVIII. The commercial emphasized on Smalltalk's key features, including the importance of GUI, as it facilitated the interaction through simplicity. [13]

1986

Between 1984 through 1986, Adele was President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Her previous roles included National Secretary and Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Computing Surveys, being awarded the 1987 ACM Software Systems Award along with her colleagues Ingalls and Kay for the development of Smalltalk. [15]

1988

In 1988, Goldberg left PARC to cofound ParcPlace Systems, a company that created development tools for Smalltalk-based applications. Most of her work at PARC is the foundation for today's graphically based user interfaces, which replace earlier command line base systems. [10] There, she served as chairwoman and CEO until its 1995 merger with Digitalk. She also cofounded Neometron, Inc. an Internet support provider in 1999. She works at Bullitics. [16] She continues to pursue her interest in education, formulating computer science courses at community colleges in the United States and abroad. She is a board member and adviser at Cognito Learning Media, a provider of multimedia software for science education. [6]

Achievements and accolades

“The Dynabook mission remains to create the medium, both the creative modeling environment and the curriculum, to upend how kids can share their understanding of how things work, and be challenged as to whether that understanding reflects an approximation to reality.” – Adele Goldberg

Goldberg has been awarded a number of awards and honors for her contributions to the development of computer systems. She was president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) from 1984 to 1986, and, with Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, received the ACM Software Systems Award in 1987. She was included in Forbes's "Twenty Who Matter". [6] In 1994, she was inducted as a Fellow of the ACM. [7] She received PC Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. [6] She was co-awarded the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award with Dan Ingalls in 2002. [17] In 2010, she was admitted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. [18] She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Open University. [17] In 2021, she received the University of Chicago Alumni Professional Achievement Award. Furthermore, she was given honorary degrees from the University of Michigan in 2014. [19]

The Computer History Museum (CHM) houses a collection of Goldberg's working documents, reports, publications and videotapes related to her work on the development of Smalltalk. [20] In 2022, with Dan Ingalls, she was made a Fellow of the CHM for promoting and codeveloping the Smalltalk programming environment and contributions advancing use of computers in education. [3]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Kay</span> American computer scientist (born 1940)

Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design. At Xerox PARC he led the design and development of the first modern windowed computer desktop interface. There he also led the development of the influential object-oriented programming language Smalltalk, both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented." He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He received the Turing award in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smalltalk</span> Object-oriented programming language released first in 1972

Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP) that was originally created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, but later found use in business. It was created at Xerox PARC by Learning Research Group (LRG) scientists, including Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, Ted Kaehler, Diana Merry, and Scott Wallace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PARC (company)</span> American company

SRI Future Concepts Division is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a division of Xerox, tasked with creating computer technology-related products and hardware systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butler Lampson</span> American computer scientist

Butler W. Lampson FRS is an American computer scientist best known for his contributions to the development and implementation of distributed personal computing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xerox Alto</span> Computer made by Xerox

The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It features a graphical user interface (GUI), a mouse, Ethernet networking, and the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously. It is one of the first computers to use a WYSIWYG text editor and has a bit-mapped display. The Alto did not succeed commercially, but it had a significant influence on the development of future computer systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xerox Star</span> Early GUI-based computer workstation from Xerox

The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse (two-button), Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers, and email.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Sassenrath</span> American computer scientist

Carl Sassenrath is an architect of operating systems and computer languages. He brought multitasking to personal computers in 1985 with the creation of the Amiga Computer operating system kernel, and he is the designer of the REBOL computer language, REBOL/IOS collaboration environment, the Safeworlds AltME private messaging system, and other products. Carl was a Principal Engineer at Roku, Inc. until his retirement in November 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dynabook</span> Early portable computer concept

The KiddiComp concept, envisioned by Alan Kay in 1968 while a PhD candidate, and later developed and described as the Dynabook in his 1972 proposal "A personal computer for children of all ages", outlines the requirements for a conceptual portable educational device that would offer similar functionality to that now supplied via a laptop computer or a tablet or slate computer with the exception of the requirement for any Dynabook device offering near eternal battery life. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience was children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Tesler</span> American computer scientist (1945–2020)

Lawrence Gordon Tesler was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Taylor (computer scientist)</span> American computer scientist

Robert William Taylor, known as Bob Taylor, was an American Internet pioneer, who led teams that made major contributions to the personal computer, and other related technologies. He was director of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office from 1965 through 1969, founder and later manager of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory from 1970 through 1983, and founder and manager of Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center until 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer History Museum</span> Museum in Mountain View, California

The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Ingalls</span> American computer scientist

Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr. is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementer of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine that made Smalltalk practical in 1976. He also invented bit blit, the general-purpose graphical operation that underlies most bitmap computer graphics systems today, and pop-up menus. He designed the generalizations of BitBlt to arbitrary color depth, with built-in scaling, rotation, and anti-aliasing. He made major contributions to the Squeak version of Smalltalk, including the original concept of a Smalltalk written in itself and made portable and efficient by a Smalltalk-to-C translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles P. Thacker</span> American computer scientist

Charles Patrick "Chuck" Thacker was an American pioneer computer designer. He designed the Xerox Alto, which is the first computer that used a mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI).

The Xerox NoteTaker is a portable computer developed at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, in 1978. Although it did not enter production, and only around ten prototypes were built, it strongly influenced the design of the later Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable computers.

Etoys is a child-friendly computer environment and object-oriented prototype-based programming language for use in education.

Diana Merry-Shapiro is a computer programmer who had worked for the Learning Research Group of Xerox PARC in the 1970s and 1980s, after having been hired originally as a secretary. As one of the original developers of the Smalltalk programming language, she helped to write the first system for overlapping display windows. Merry was also one of the co-inventors of the bit block transfer (BitBLT) routines for Smalltalk, subroutines for performing computer graphics operations quickly which were pivotal in the evolution of user interfaces from text-based user interfaces to graphical user interfaces.

The Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award was an annual prize given to individuals who, in the opinion of the editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal, "made significant contributions to the advancement of software development." The Excellence in Programming Award includes a $1,000 prize that was donated in the award winner's name to a charity of the winner's choice. The award was launched in 1995 in the print edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal and was given each year until 2009. In his March 1995 article introducing the awards, then editor-in-chief Jonathan Erickson wrote that the award was intended to recognize "achievement and excellence in the field of computer programming." Erickson explained that the winners were "selected by a special editorial committee" of the magazine. Because Dr. Dobb's serves an audience of software developers, the Excellence in Programming Award is specifically intended to recognize resources for programmers: languages, code libraries, tutorial books, and so on. Developers of shrinkwrap software intended for retail sale, custom software for corporate use, embedded software, or general-purpose applications were not considered for the award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Utah School of Computing</span> School in University of Utah

The Kahlert School of Computing is a school within the College of Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ted Kaehler is an American computer scientist known for his role in the development of several system methods. He is most noted for his contributions to the programming languages Smalltalk, Squeak, and Apple Computer's HyperCard system, and other technologies developed at Xerox PARC.

References

  1. GfG. (2022, September 30). Introduction to Smalltalk. GeeksforGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/introduction-to-smalltalk/
  2. 1 2 "Oral-History:Adele Goldberg". ETHW. April 14, 2022. Retrieved December 18, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "Adele Goldberg: 2022 Fellow". Computer History Museum (CHM). April 2022. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
  4. Ethw. (2022, April 14). Oral-History:Adele Goldberg - Engineering and Technology History Wiki. ETHW. https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Undergraduate_Career_at_U_of_Michigan
  5. "Adele Goldberg". Centre for Computing History. Retrieved December 17, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2002). International encyclopedia of women scientists . New York, New York: Facts on File. pp. 136–137. ISBN   978-0816043811.
  7. 1 2 3 Adele Goldberg Biography. BookRags.
  8. Women who changed tech - Dr. Adele Goldberg. (n.d.). Extreme Networks. https://www.extremenetworks.com/resources/blogs/women-who-changed-tech-dr-adele-goldberg
  9. Chamond Liu, Smalltalk, Objects, and Design (San Jose, New York, and Shanghai: toExcel, 2000), 240
  10. 1 2 Dr. Adele Goldberg. (2017, August 20). IT History Society. https://www.ithistory.org/honor-roll/dr-adele-goldberg
  11. Kay, Alan C.; Goldberg, Adele (March 1977). "Personal Dynamic Media". Computer. 10 (3): 31–41. doi:10.1109/c-m.1977.217672. S2CID   15070347.
  12. Kay, A., Goldberg, A., & Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. (1977). Personal Dynamic media. In Computer (Vol. 10, Issue 3, pp. 31–41). https://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf
  13. 1 2 Women who changed tech - Dr. Adele Goldberg. (n.d.-b). Extreme Networks. https://www.extremenetworks.com/resources/blogs/women-who-changed-tech-dr-adele-goldberg
  14. Cringely, Robert X. (June 1996). "Triumph of the Nerds: The Television Program Transcripts: Part III". PBS.org.
  15. Computer History Museum. (2022b, September 8). Adele Goldberg - CHM. CHM. https://computerhistory.org/profile/adele-goldberg/
  16. "The Team - Bios". Bullitics - Beta. April 26, 2012. Archived from the original on April 26, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
  17. 1 2 "2002 Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Awards". Dr. Dobb's. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  18. (Qamar, 2022)
  19. Computer History Museum. (2022, September 8). Adele Goldberg - CHM. CHM. https://computerhistory.org/profile/adele-goldberg/
  20. Guide to the Adele Goldberg papers. Computer History Museum. Retrieved April 28, 2016.