P. J. Plauger

P.J. Plauger
BornPhillip James Plauger
(1944-01-13) January 13, 1944 (age 80)
Petersburg, West Virginia
OccupationEntrepreneur and writer
Alma mater
GenreScience fiction
Notable works"Child of All Ages"
Notable awardsJohn W. Campbell Award (1975)[1]

Phillip James (P.J. or Bill) Plauger[2] (/ˈpiˌdʒeɪ ˈplɔːɡər/; born January 13, 1944, Petersburg, West Virginia) is an author, entrepreneur and computer programmer. He has written and co-written articles and books about programming style, software tools, and the C programming language, as well as works of science fiction.

Personal life and career

Plauger worked at Bell Labs from 1969 to 1975,[1] where he coauthored Elements of Programming Style and Software Tools with Brian Kernighan. In 1978, he founded Whitesmiths, the first company to sell a C compiler and Unix-like operating system (Idris). He has since been involved in C and C++ standardization and is now the president of Dinkumware. In January 2009 he became the convener of the ISO C++ standards committee, but in October 2009 he tendered his resignation after failing to pass a resolution to stop processing any new features in order to facilitate the promised shipping date for the C++0x standard.[3][4]

Plauger has been credited with inventing pair programming while leading Whitesmiths Ltd.[5]

Plauger has written a number of science fiction stories, notably "Child of All Ages", first published in the March 1975 issue of Analog, which features a protagonist who has achieved immortality at the cost of never growing beyond childhood. The story was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1976. Plauger won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1975—notably beating John Varley for the award—and subsequently sold a story to The Last Dangerous Visions.

Plauger holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Princeton University and a PhD in nuclear physics from Michigan State University.[6]

Dinkumware

Dinkumware, Ltd.
Company typePrivate
IndustrySoftware
HeadquartersConcord, Massachusetts, US
Key people
P.J. Plauger, Pete Becker
ProductsDinkum C++ library
Dinkum C++ Library Reference
Dinkum C Library Reference
Dinkum CoreX Library
Websitewww.dinkumware.com (archive)

Dinkumware is an American software company specializing in core libraries for C/C++, owned and operated by P.J. Plauger. It is based in Concord, Massachusetts.

The company has provided the C++ Standard Library implementation that ships with Microsoft Visual C++ since 1996 and Embarcadero C++Builder since 2005,[7] and supplies C++ and Embedded C++ libraries to the embedded community. It also provides libraries for Java and other tools, including "proofers" to test for library adherence to the standard.

Nonfiction works

  • The Elements of Programming Style (1974, revised 1978) with Brian W. Kernighan
  • Software Tools (1976) with Brian W. Kernighan
  • Software Tools in Pascal (1981) with Brian W. Kernighan
  • The Standard C library (1992)
  • Programming on Purpose, collected essays from the magazine Computer Language
    • Volume I: Essays on Software Design (1992)
    • Volume II: Essays on Software People (1993)
    • Volume III: Essays on Software Technology (1993)
  • The Draft Standard C++ Library (1995)
  • Standard C: A Reference (1989, revised 1992, revised 1996) with Jim Brodie
  • The C++ Standard Template Library (2001) with Alexander Stepanov, Meng Lee, and David Musser

References

  1. ^ a b Salus, Peter H. (2005). "Chapter 15. Commercial UNIXes to BSDI". The Daemon, the Gnu and the Penguin. Groklaw.
  2. ^ Plauger, Phillip James (1969). "Spectroscopy in the Titanium Isotopes" (PDF). PhD Thesis. Michigan State University, Department of Physics. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 8, 2016. Retrieved December 27, 2011.
  3. ^ Stefanus Du Toit, ISO/IEC C++ Standards Committee Paper N3003 (December 4, 2009). "Minutes of WG21 Meeting, October 19, 2009" (PDF). pp. 10, 20–21. Retrieved April 10, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ comp.std.c++, George Ryan, Ville Voutilainen, Francis Glassborow, and Steve Clamage (October 25, 2009). "Plauger resigned as convener?". Retrieved October 27, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Larry Constantine, "The Benefits of Visibility," Computer Language Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 2, February 1992. Reprinted in L. L. Constantine, The Peopleware Papers [Prentice Hall, 2001]
  6. ^ Shannon Cochran (March 31, 2004). "Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award". Dr. Dobb's Journal.
  7. ^ "Embarcadero's continuing commitment to C, C99 and C++". edn.embarcadero.com. Retrieved September 17, 2019.