Jean Ichbiah

Jean David Ichbiah (25 March 1940 – 26 January, 2007) was a French-born computer scientist and the chief designer (from 1977–1983) of Ada, a general-purpose, strongly-typed programming language with certified validated compilers. "Ada 83 designer Jean Ichbiah dies", Ada-Europe, 2007, webpage: [http://www.ada-europe.org/Jean_Ichbiah_Obituary.html AdaE-Jobit] .] At the time, he was a member of the Programming Research division at CII Honeywell Bull (CII-HB) in Louveciennes, France. He had previously designed an experimental system implementation language called LIS (1972–1974), based on Pascal and Simula [cite web
url = http://febcm.club.fr/english/bull_software.htm
title = Software at Bull | accessdate = 2007-02-13
quote = LIS was an experimental implementation language designed by Jean Ichbiah on Siris8. LIS was not used on commercial CII products. LIS was inspired by Pascal and Simula and has contributed to the definition of Ada. ] (in fact, he had been chairman of the Simula User's Group), and was one of the founding members of IFIP WG 2.4 on Systems Implementation Languages. [cite web
url = http://www.cs.uvic.ca/~wg24/history.html
title = The Beginning of IFIP Working Group 2.4
accessdate = 2007-02-13 | author = Gerhard Goos]

Ichbiah's team submitted the language design called "Green" to the competition to choose the United States Department of Defense's embedded programming language. When Green was selected in 1978, he continued as chief designer of the language, renamed "Ada". In 1980, Ichbiah left CII-HB and founded the Alsys corporation in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, which continued language definition to standardize Ada 83, and later went into the Ada compiler business, also supplying special validated compiler systems to NASA, the US Army, and others. He later moved to the Waltham, Massachusetts subsidiary of Alsys.

Ichbiah subsequently started the [http://www.textware.com Textware] company, which sells text entry software for PDAs and tablet PCs, as well as text-entry software for Medical Transcription on PCs.

In 1979, Jean Ichbiah was designated a "chevalier" (knight) of the French Legion of Honor and a "correspondent" of the French Academy of Sciences. He received a Certificate of Distinguished Service from the DoD for his work on Ada.

He was a descendant of Jews from Thessaloniki who emigrated to France. [cite web
author=Jean Ichbiah
title=Disappointed by lack of localization/customization capabilities | accessdate = 2007-02-13
quote=...my mother was born in Saloniki
url = http://www.fitaly.com/board/winceforum/posts/2291.html] Jean Ichbiah died from complications of a brain tumor on January 26, 2007. [cite newsgroup
title = In Remembrance of Jean Ichbiah | author = Joyce Tokar
date=2007-01-28 | newsgroup=comp.lang.ada | accessdate=Feb.2007
id = 9b850$45bd0bc6$cc0ba50e$[e-mail]
url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/67b974e9a1678a2/712fc78683a2a3f1?lnk=st&q=jean+ichbiah&rnum=1#712fc78683a2a3f1]

References

Further reading

*cite journal
author = Jean Ichbiah
title = Ada: Past, Present, Future — An Interview with Jean Ichbiah, the Principal Designer of Ada
journal = Communications of the ACM
month=October | year=1984 | volume=27 | issue=10 | pages=990–997
url = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/358274.358278
doi = 10.1145/358274.358278

External links

* " [http://www.adaic.org/news/ichbiah.html Jean Ichbiah passes away] ", press release by the Ada Resource Association
* " [http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/02/02/ichbiah_obit/ Programming pioneer dies — A tribute to Ada's Jean Ichbiah] ", by Phil Manchester (2007-02-02)
* [http://www.admi.net/cgi-bin/wiki?JeanIchbiah Obituary] by Bertrand Meyer
* [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/03/03/jean_ichbiah_66_designed_landmark_computer_language/ Jean Ichbiah, 66; designed landmark computer language]
* [http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9010058 Ada inventor Jean Ichbiah dies]
* [http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/in_memoriam.htm Jean Ichbiah — Members of the French Academy of Sciences] fr icon
* [http://www.ada-europe.org/Jean_Ichbiah_Obituary.html Ada 83 designer Jean Ichbiah dies] , by Ada-Europe, 2007.