Richard Wexelblat

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Richard L. Wexelblat, aka Dick Wexelblat is an American, a former artisan woodturner, and a former computer scientist.

Early life[]

Wexelblat received his BSEE, MSEE (CS), and Ph.D. (CS) from The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 6/1959, 6/1961, and 12/1965 respectively. His doctorate is believed by many and so reported by ACM to have been the first ever awarded by a formally recognized Computer Science department.[1][2] (Note: not the first CS doctorate, but the first awarded by a CS department. See the note about Andy van Dam below.) His doctoral advisor was Noah Prywes.[3]

He left the computer field to become an artisan woodturner and has since retired from that field as well. He currently resides with his wife as a seniors facility in Coatesville PA.

Career[]

He is said to be the originator of Wexelblat's scheduling algorithm: "Choose two of: good, fast, cheap." He states, "Bob Rosin said I originated this; I'm not sure. He also credited me with having been the first to refer to Occam's Razor as 'The Law of Least Astonishment'". http://www.anvari.org/fortune/Software_Engineering_Proverbs/16_wexelblats-scheduling-algorithm-choose-two-good-fast-cheap.html

Personal life[]

His sons, Alan and David and his brother Paul are also computer scientists, although Paul is now mostly retired and David is now a lawyer.

Although Richard is proud of his achievements, he has two thoughts to share. Andries van Dam Andries_van_Dam completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Moore School only a few weeks after Richard. Andy has devoted his professional life to Computer Science and Computer Graphics. He is the one who deserves pioneer credit. Speaking of pioneers, Paul Wexelblat Interface_Message_Processor wrote code for the earliest version of the Internet and is a true Internet Pioneer.

Selected publications[]

  • Richard L. Wexelblat (ed.): History of Programming Languages, Academic Press 1981. ISBN 978-0-12-745040-7

References[]

  1. ^ Edwin D. Reilly (2003). Milestones in computer science and information technology. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-57356-521-9. Richard Wexelblat algorithm.
  2. ^ "Computer Pioneers - Saul Gorn". history.computer.org.
  3. ^ "Who Earned First Computer Science PhD".

External links[]


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