Niklaus Emil Wirth was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science, "for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages".
Wirth in 2005
Wirth in 1969
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing".
Alan Turing, after whom the award is named
Image: Maurice Vincent Wilkes 1980 (3, cropped)
Image: Marvin Minsky at OLP Cc
Image: John Mc Carthy Stanford