Brian Wilson Kernighan is a Canadian computer scientist who worked at Bell
Labs alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and
contributed to the development of Unix. He is also coauthor of the AWK and AMPL
programming languages. The "K" of K&R C and the "K" in AWK both stand for
"Kernighan". Since 2000 Brian Kernighan has been a Professor at the Computer
Science Department of Princeton University, where he is also the
Undergraduate Department Representative. Kernighan's name became widely known
through co-authorship of the first book on the C programming language with
Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan affirmed that he had no part in the design of the C
language. He authored many Unix programs, including ditroff, and cron
for Version 7 Unix. In collaboration with Shen Lin he
devised well-known heuristics for two NP-complete optimization problems: graph
partitioning and the travelling salesman problem.
Kernighan was the software editor for Prentice Hall International. His
"Software Tools" series spread the essence of "C/Unix thinking" with
makeovers for BASIC, FORTRAN, and Pascal, and most notably his "Ratfor"
was put in the public domain. He has said that if stranded on an
island with only one programming language it would have to be C.
Kernighan coined the term Unix and helped popularize Thompson's Unix
philosophy. Kernighan is also known as a coiner of the expression "What You See
Is All You Get", which is a sarcastic variant of the original "What You See Is
What You Get". Kernighan's term is used to indicate that WYSIWYG systems might
throw away information in a document that could be useful in other contexts.
Kernighan's original 1978 implementation of Hello, World! was sold at The
Algorithm Auction, the world’s first auction of computer algorithms.
Early life and education Born in Toronto, Kernighan attended the
University of Toronto between 1960 and 1964, earning his Bachelor's degree in
engineering physics. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton
University, where he has held a professorship in the department of
computer science since 2000. Each fall he teaches a course called "Computers in
Our World", which introduces the fundamentals of computing to non-majors.
Summary of achievements The AMPL programming language
The AWK programming language, with Alfred Aho and Peter J. Weinberger, and
its book The AWK Programming Language ditroff, or "device independent troff",
which allowed troff to be used with any device
The Elements of Programming Style, with P. J. Plauger
The first documented "Hello, world!" program, in Kernighan's "A Tutorial
Introduction to the Language B" Ratfor
Software Tools, a book and set of tools for Ratfor, co-created in part with P.
J. Plauger Software Tools in Pascal, a book and set
of tools for Pascal, with P. J. Plauger The C Programming Language, with C
creator Dennis Ritchie, the first book on C
The eqn typesetting language for troff, with Lorinda Cherry
The m4 macro processing language, with Dennis Ritchie
The pic typesetting language for troff The Practice of Programming, with Rob
Pike The Unix Programming Environment, a
tutorial book, with Rob Pike "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite
Programming Language", a popular criticism of Niklaus Wirth's Pascal.
Some parts of the criticism are obsolete due to ISO 7185; the criticism was
written before ISO 7185 was created. Writings
The Elements of Programming Style with P. J. Plauger
Software Tools with P. J. Plauger The C Programming Language with Dennis
M. Ritchie Software Tools in Pascal with P. J.
Plauger The Unix Programming Environment with
Rob Pike The AWK Programming Language with Alfred
Aho and Peter J. Weinberger The Practice of Programming with Rob
Pike AMPL: A Modeling Language for
Mathematical Programming, 2nd ed. with Robert Fourer and David Gay
D is for Digital: What a well-informed person should know about computers and
communications The Go Programming Language with Alan
Donovan References
External links Brian Kernighan's home page at Princeton
U. Brian Kernighan's home page at Bell Labs
"Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language" — By Brian
Kernighan, AT&T Bell Labs, 2 April 1981 "Leap In and Try Things" — Interview
with Brian Kernighan — on "Harmony at Work Blog", October 2009.
An Interview with Brian Kernighan — By Mihai Budiu, for PC Report Romania,
August 2000 Transcript of an interview with Brian
Kernighan at the Wayback Machine – Interview by Michael S. Mahoney at the
Wayback Machine Video — TechNetCast At Bell Labs: Dennis
Ritchie and Brian Kernighan Video — "Assembly for the Class of 2007:
'D is for Digital and Why It Matters'" A Descent into Limbo by Brian Kernighan
Photos of Brian Kernighan Works by Brian Kernighan at Open Library
Video interview with Brian Kernighan for Princeton Startup TV
The Setup, Brian Kernighan