The prominent scientist Niklaus Wirth passed away
On January 1, 2024, at the age of 90, the prominent Swiss scientist Niklaus Wirth passed away. Throughout his career, he became one of the leading theorists in the development of programming languages and computer science.
In 1954, Wirth enrolled in the electronics faculty of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. In 1960, he obtained a master's degree at Laval University in Canada. He continued his education at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and in 1963, defended his dissertation on the Euler programming language.
Wirth then worked as an assistant at Stanford University and participated in the development of the PL/360 programming language.
In 1967, Wirth returned to ETH Zurich and became a professor of computer science in 1968.
In 1971, Wirth introduced the Pascal programming language, which became one of the most important and influential languages in programming education. He also developed structural programming techniques in the 1970s and created the Modula language for modular programming in 1975.
In 1984, Niklaus Wirth was awarded the Turing Award for his contributions to programming languages and computer science.
In 1988, Wirth developed the Oberon language, which continued the evolution of his previous works. We remember with deep gratitude the attention, which the famous professor paid to our colleagues in the institute, kindly provided them more detailed information about the new language, which was necessary for our work in the field of compiler construction technology.
From 1982 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1990, Wirth chaired the ETH Department of Computer Science, and from 1990 to 1999, the Institute for Computer Systems at ETH.
His contributions to the development of computer science and programming languages will leave an indelible mark on the history of informatics.
