Rod Burstall
Encyclopedia
Rodney Martineau Burstall is one of four founders of the Edinburgh Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
.
He was an early and influential proponent of functional programming
, pattern matching
, and list comprehension, and is known for his work with Robin Popplestone
on POP
, an innovative programming language developed at Edinburgh
around 1970, and later work with John Darlington on NPL
and David MacQueen and Don Sannella
on Hope
, a precursor to Standard ML
, Miranda, and Haskell
. In 2009 he was awarded the ACM
SIGPLAN
Programming Language Achievement Award.
Rod retired in 2000, becoming Professor Emeritus, and now spends most of his time in Scotland
and France
.
Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
The Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science is based in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. It has an international reputation in theoretical computer science, mathematical logic and category theory.- Current :...
.
He was an early and influential proponent of functional programming
Functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions, in contrast to the imperative programming style, which emphasizes changes in state...
, pattern matching
Pattern matching
In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking some sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact. The patterns generally have the form of either sequences or tree structures...
, and list comprehension, and is known for his work with Robin Popplestone
Robin Popplestone
Robin John Popplestone was a pioneer in the fields of machine intelligence and robotics. He developed the POP programming languages....
on POP
POP-2
POP-2, often referred to as POP2 was a programming language developed around 1970 from the earlier language POP-1 by Robin Popplestone and Rod Burstall at the University of Edinburgh. It drew roots from many sources: the languages LISP and ALGOL 60, and theoretical ideas from Landin...
, an innovative programming language developed at Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
around 1970, and later work with John Darlington on NPL
NPL programming language
NPL was a functional language with pattern matching designed by Rod Burstall and John Darlington in 1977. The language allowed certain sets and logic constructs to appear on the right hand side of definitions, E.g. setofeven...
and David MacQueen and Don Sannella
Don Sannella
Donald T. Sannella is Professor of Computer Science in the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His research interests include: algebraic specification and formal software development, correctness of modular systems, types and...
on Hope
Hope programming language
Hope is a small functional programming language developed in the 1970s at Edinburgh University. It predates Miranda and Haskell and is contemporaneous with ML . It is notable for being the first language with call-by-pattern evaluation and algebraic data types...
, a precursor to Standard ML
Standard ML
Standard ML is a general-purpose, modular, functional programming language with compile-time type checking and type inference. It is popular among compiler writers and programming language researchers, as well as in the development of theorem provers.SML is a modern descendant of the ML...
, Miranda, and Haskell
Haskell (programming language)
Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose purely functional programming language, with non-strict semantics and strong static typing. It is named after logician Haskell Curry. In Haskell, "a function is a first-class citizen" of the programming language. As a functional programming language, the...
. In 2009 he was awarded the ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
SIGPLAN
SIGPLAN
SIGPLAN is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on programming languages.- Conferences :* Principles of Programming Languages * Programming Language Design and Implementation...
Programming Language Achievement Award.
Rod retired in 2000, becoming Professor Emeritus, and now spends most of his time in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.