Topic Summary

This lecture will give a survey of how object-oriented programming was created and started to spread. Also a number of anecdotes, but mainly presenting the world picture -the perspective - of the Simula languages, and the various versions of that picture built into other object-oriented languages.

The next lecture will present what in Kristen Nygaard's opinion should be the basic concepts of informatics:

• perspectives,
• information processes, with substance, states, and transitions as their basic aspects,
• structure,
• inheritance and virtual procedures and quantities.

The third lecture will be a continuation of the second lecture with some concluding remarks about the three basic families of languages:

• substance-oriented ( object-oriented languages, database languages as examples)
• state-oriented (the PROLOG language as example), and
• transition-oriented languages (procedure-oriented languages, functional languages)

Then he will briefly cover his recent work in language constructs, using the theatre metaphor to model layered architectures.

Speaker Information

Kristen Nygaard invented in the 1960s, together with Ole-Johan Dahl, the Simula languages, the first object-oriented programming languages, containing the key object-oriented concepts: objects, classes, inheritance, virtual procedures and multi-threaded program execution. Since then he has been a key actor in the field, developing the BETA language, as well as doing research in system development and social aspects of informatics (computer science). In October 1990 the American association Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility awarded him its Norbert Wiener Prize for responsibility in social and professional work. In June 2000 he was awarded a Honorary Fellowship for "his originating of object technology concepts" by the Object Management Group, the international standardization organization within object-orientation. See http://www.ifi.uio.no/~kristen/index.html for further information.

• ArchWing Innovations, LLC
• Artemis Alliance, Inc.
• Compuware Corporation
• Fourth Generation, Inc.
• Talent Software Services, Inc.
• West Group, a Thomson Company