GTAC 2009 - Opening Talk

Google Tech Talk October 21, 2009 ABSTRACT Presented by Professor Niklaus Wirth at the 4th Annual Google Test Automation Conference, October 21st, 22nd, 2009, Zurich, CH The activity of testing is as old as programming. We recall the early days of programming, the techniques available at the time, and the introduction of tools for testing and - mainly - debugging. Then we try to compare the old techniques with the modern state of the art, and to critically assess the progress achieved. Bio: Niklaus Wirth was born in February 1934 in Winterthur, Switzerland. He studied electrical engineering at ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zürich, graduated in 1959, received an M.Sc. degree from Laval University in Quebec, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1963.Wirth has been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University (1963-67) and, after his return to Switzerland, a Professor of Informatics at ETH from 1968 1999. His principal areas of contribution were programming languages and methodology, software engineering, and design of personal workstations. He has designed the programming languages Algol W (1965), Pascal (1970), Modula-2 (1979), and Oberon (1988), was involved in the methodologies of Structured Programming and Stepwise Refinement, and designed and built the workstations Lilith, with high-resolution display, mouse, and high-level language compiler in 1980, and Ceres in 1986.He has published several text books for courses on programming, algorithms and data structures, and logical design of digital circuits. He has received many prizes and honorary doctorates, including the Turing Award (1984), the IEEE Computer Pioneer (1988), the Award for outstanding contributions to Computer Science Education (acm 1987), and the IBM Europe Science and Technology Award in 1989. http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth