Douglas McIlroy. His seminal work on software componentization,[1] makes him a pioneer of component-based software engineering and software product line engineering.
McIlroy (left) with former colleague Dennis Ritchie at the Japan Prize Foundation in May 2011. Dr. McIlroy earned his Bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University in 1954, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT in 1959 for his thesis On the Solution of the Differential Equations of Conical Shells. He taught at MIT from 1954 to 1958. McIlroy joined Bell Laboratories in 1958, from 1965-1986 was head of its Computing Techniques Research Department (the birthplace of the Unix operating system), and thereafter was Distinguished Member of Technical Staff. Google I/O 2011: Writing Web Apps in Go. Ken Thompson. American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system Early life and education[edit] Thompson was born in New Orleans.
When asked how he learned to program, Thompson stated, "I was always fascinated with logic and even in grade school I'd work on arithmetic problems in binary, stuff like that. Just because I was fascinated. "