Alan Jay Perlis

A pioneer in advanced programming techniques and compiler construction, Perlis was the first recipient of the ACM Turing Award in 1966, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of Computing."

Perlis was born on April 1, 1922, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1943. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he earned his master's degree and Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949 and 1950, respectively.

Perlis joined the faculty at Purdue University in 1952, where he worked on early computing projects. He then moved to Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie Mellon University) in 1956, where he helped establish and chaired the first computer science department in the United States from 1965–1971. He later joined Yale University in 1971, where he served as a professor until his death in 1990.

Perlis is perhaps best known for his contributions to the development of ALGOL (Algorithmic Language), a highly influential programming language that shaped the design of many subsequent languages. He served as the first editor of the Communications of the ACM from 1958–1962. He also played a key role in the creation of IT-CERL (the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory) and was heavily involved in the development of early programming languages and compilers.

Perlis received many honors throughout his career. He was elected a fellow of the ACM and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His wit and insight extended beyond technical contributions—he is perhaps equally famous for his "Epigrams on Programming," a collection of 130 witty and thought-provoking aphorisms about programming published in 1982 in SIGPLAN Notices.