Subject: Re: Wirth retires Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 15:18:21 +0200 From: Pedro Gaston Gonnet Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.oberon,comp.lang.modula2,comp.lang.pascal.misc > Oh my. Load the url into Altavista's Babelfish translator > (http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate?)! Funny > reading! :-) that's why fish can't talk... > Could someone provide a better translating. I'm very interested to know > what it says. i'll give it a try, but the author, probably in an attempt to show years of university studies in germanistic, uses pretty complicated german and sentance structures that are hard to translate. weird or missing translations are accompanied by the german word(s) in []. please forgive my english mistakes, it's been a while... pedro gonnet pgonnet@student.ethz.ch title: a digital transverse philosopher [querdenker] retires abstract: the probably most prominent swiss computer-science pioner retiers. niklaus wirth takes a proud, yet sad [wehmuetig] look back on his career. text: grey is the color of the functionality-oriented computer-science building. it is also the color of the cells that fill the heads of computer-scientists. but what a diference! althoug the sober architecture barely manages to stimulate the imagination, the brains at work in these bare rooms still produce genial ideas. niklaus with is one of these creators. the professor at the institute for computer systems set new scientific standards with his programing languages and computers. in the sixties, he brought the then chaotic world of computer programing to a clear, comprehesive foundation. with the programing language pascal, finished in 1970, wirth accomplished the feat that made him famous world-wide. pascal, named in reverence of the frech universal-mathematician of the seventeenth century, was the first programing language based on a clear and uniform structure, making it the language of choice for education. pascal's great break-through came in the second half of the seventies, when the first microcomputers from apple and commodore hit the market. countless schools around the globe installed pascal on their machines... since then, wirth has perfected his systematic and developed other languages such as modula and oberon, yet hardware also interested the scientist. only then, when the hard- and software are in tune, is it posible to create user-friendly solutions. this motto was realised with the computers he built himself - the Lilith, the Ceres and the Chamaeleon. at the end of march, niklaus wirth will vacate his office in the computer-science building, retiring at 65 like all other civil servants. yet wirth was not your tipical confederate civil servant. uncompromising - for some of his collegues sometimes somewhat puritan or even stubborn [eigensinnig] - he followed his goal: to turn the computer into a productive work instrument for all. systematic, methodic and structured. these three academic-sounding terms always show up in his discourse when he talks of hard- and software, meaning only that computer systems should be simple, understandable and clear. with these demands he sees himself far from the mainstream. he is convinced that "swimming against the current is one of the oldest tasks of a university." today's computer-science landscape looks like a uniform desert: a handfull of companies, like microsoft, intel, ibm and compaq control the global mass market. yet in wirth's view, today's software products are labyrinths, forcing users to wander around with innumerable mouse clicks, finding the exit only out of dumb luck. the highly popular text-processor, word, is one of the most complex systems, milions of lines of code sprinkled with uncountable errors. subtitle: harsh words for the industry "reliable and transparent programs are usualy not in the intrest of the designer" continues wirth. the marketing departments of the software giants had noticed that potential customers are not lured by simplicity. the things that fascinate people are cool features that no-one realy needs but can be shown off proudly to friends. "the wishes of the user are heeded too strongly, not their needs," he concludes. nevertheless, the trend towards faster pc's and more complex programs seems to be unstoppable. yet for wirth, next to the technical limitations, there are also human limitations: "our heads are no longer capable to process everything." even the scientific community is showing signs of turning towards simplicity and clarity - wirth's conservative credo. wirth, being a sharp and critical anlayst, is also critical of artificial intelligence. though it is a faschinating field, it has been promising results for the past 40 years - without success. "computers with human characteristics is nonsense," says wirth. the technology is generaly overestimated, one of the reasons being the decline of phisics and chemistry in public schools. sometimes the soon to be retiree feels like a caller in the desert [rufer in der wueste]; even his two daughters weren't fascinated by a technical education and his son became a musician. "maybe i was a frightening model [vorbild]," chuckles wirth, who consequently went his own way. with a electro-engineering diploma from the eth in his pocket he left switzerland in 1959. at the renound universiy of california in berkley he graduated in software engineering and finaly landed at stanford university as an assistant professor. after 8 years in the us, wirth returned to switzerland with his family, tempted by an offer from the eth to create a computer science group. despite the triumph with pascal, switzerland didn't seem to be a too fertile ground for computer science. "sometimes frustrating," says wirth, who build the lilith computer between 1977 and 1980. the powerful workstation was one of the first to have a mouse, a high resolution monitor and a graphical user interface. in comparison the apple ii of the time seemed almost traditional, hosting only a keyboard. but the lilith brought wirth no comercial success. the industry was cautious and unwilling to take any risks: the project for a commercial production was quickly abandoned. "the opportunity to build a computer industry in our country was then lost," says wirth. reagrding teaching switzerland was also still a developing country. while the us introduced computer-science courses [studiengaenge] in 1965, the eth only decided to follow suit in 1980, 12 years after wirth's return. many initiatives [vorstoesse], submitted by him and his coleague carl august zehnder, fell on deaf ears. yet such deceptions didn't stop wirth from doing reasearch and teaching. landmarks of his work in the eighties were the ceres computer and the oberon operating system, which allowed an uncomplicated dialog between the user and the computer. lately the computer-science pioneer has been working on the edge of hard- and software and has developed tools for programmable semiconductors (FPGAs). a career with seven honorary doctorates and may decorations comes to an end, driven by curiosity and thirst for knowledge allready present in his early years. niklaus wirth grew up in winthertur, beside the high-school where his father taught geography. the only child found his inspiration [geistige nahrung] in his fathers library, filled with technical works. there he found descriptions of turbines, steam-machines [dampfmaschinen], locomotives and telegrafs - the technology fascinated him. yet the theory alone was not enough for the student, he wondered how it would all work in real life. in a group of model airplane fanatics he built airplanes of his own design with friends - more than two dozen, the largest with a wing span of 3.5 meters. in highschool wirth was fascinated by chemistry. at home he built a laboratory in his basement to try out on his own what he had learnt at school. his blue eyes twinkle as he laughs the professor like a little boy while telling an anectote about a ill-fortuned model rocket experiment. he and a friend had not sufficiently isolated the fuel mix of [kaliumperchlorat], sulfur and carbon. the projectile missed it's planed trajectory and landed at the principal's feet, who had just come around a corner. no disciplinary measures were taken. "an unencumbered time," recalls the universiy professor who, even during his academic career, was able to realise most of his ideas. for him fundamental science [grundlagenforschung] was a needed space to create new knowledge - without having to think about marketing it. tempi passati. today the wind has changed in science. professors are now managers and orient themselves towards market tendencies, such as anton gunzinger with his supercomputers. wirth still has problems with that, having alwas pointedly preached for a clear separation of industry and universities. yet now the universities must work under the efficiency criteria of the economy, that's the way the new government policy sees it. "if university reasearch has to show short-term benefits, it's a devastating perspective," says wirth sadly, being used to full academic freedom. yet the digital transverse philosopher will remain independant - in retirement. he wishes to find more muse, return to building model aircraft and reading books - [belletristik]. above all he loves detective stories. wirth can't get away from logical combination.