The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize Winners for 2015

AITO is happy to announce the winners of the Dahl-Nygaard Prizes for 2015.

The Senior Prize is awarded to Bjarne Stroustrup for the design, implementation and evolution of the C++ programming language.

The Junior Prize is awarded to Alexander J. Summers for his work on the verification of object-oriented programs and type systems.

The Dahl-Nygaard Prizes for 2015 will be given during ECOOP 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic, in July 2015.

Bjarne Stroustrup has a Master's (1975) from his native Århus, Denmark and a Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Cambridge, U.K. Stroustrup designed and implemented the programming language C++ (originally "C with Classes") while at Bell Labs. In 1985, it was first released outside Bell Labs, and the first edition of his book "The C++ Programming Language" was published. He has lead the strong evolution of the language ever since, although it has been standardized by ISO from 1998 on. From 2002 onwards, he has been a Professor at Texas A&M University. Recently, he is Managing Director in the technology division of Morgan Stanley in New York and Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He has published books and articles and given talks on virtually everything related to C++. The C++ language has had a significant impact on computing practices and has pushed object-oriented technology into the mainstream of computing. It has also influenced the design of newer object-oriented languages. For more than a decade, it was the most widely used, industry-accepted programming language supporting object-oriented programming. C++ does not force a strictly object-oriented programming style; it also allows other styles. It continues to be strong especially in systems and applications in which efficiency is a major concern; efficiency has always been very important in the design of C++.

Alex Summers obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 from Imperial College London. Since then he has been a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London and at ETH Zurich. Alex's research contributions span the fundamentals of Computer Science (the Curry-Howard isomorphism for classical logic), the design of programming languages (committed types for object initialization), models underpinning program reasoning (invariants for program verification, permission logics, the connection between implicit dynamic frames and separation logics), new approaches to reasoning (considerate reasoning, abstract read permissions), and tool development for reasoning. His work exploits the separation of concerns and the encapsulation offered by the object-oriented paradigm. His breadth of interests is reflected in the wide array of his collaborations. Alex's exceptional achievements, his uncompromising focus on quality, and his keen interest in practically useful results make him a role model for young researchers. He is also an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher.

The Members of the 2015 Dahl-Nygaard Award Committee were:

• Markku Sakkinen (chair)

• Richard Jones

• Gerti Kappel

• Awais Rashid

• Tobias Wrigstad

The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prizes are named for Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard, two pioneers in the area of programming and simulation. Their foundational work on object-oriented programming, made concrete in the Simula language, is one of the most important inventions in software engineering. Their key ideas were expressed already around 1965, but took over 20 years to be absorbed and appreciated by the broader software community. After that, object-orientation has profoundly transformed the landscape of software design and development techniques. It was a great loss to our community that both Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard passed away in 2002. In remembrance of their scholarship and enthusiastic encouragement of young researchers, in 2004 AITO established a prize to be awarded annually to a senior researcher with outstanding career contributions and a younger researcher who has demonstrated great potential for following in the footsteps of these two pioneers.

AITO (Association Internationale pour les Technologies Objets) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of object technology. As of January 2015, it has 46 members and is registered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Current President of AITO is Professor Eric Jul. For further information, visit www.aito.org.