Ralph Griswold

Ralph E. Griswold ( born May 19, 1934 in Modesto, † October 4, 2006 in Tucson ) was an American computer scientist who was instrumental in the development of programming languages ​​SNOBOL, SL5 and Icon.

Griswold studied at Stanford University, where she earned a Bachelor in physics and the MS and Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He started his career in 1962 at the famous Bell Laboratories and conducted research there on the non-numerical data processing. The result was SNOBOL, a high-level language, which provided for those times downright revolutionary possibilities in the processing of strings. Five years later he was head of his own research and development department.

1971 Griswold was the first professor of computer science at the State University of Arizona, built the department up and was its director until 1981. During his time in Arizona Griswold SNOBOL has developed further and was the design of the direct successor SL5 ( " SNOBOL 5") involved. In 1977 he designed the programming language Icon, which was inspired by SNOBOL and ALGOL and whose strength in turn is the non-numerical data processing.

1990 he was appointed to the Board of the College, of which he was five years before he finally retired from teaching. He died on 4 October 2006 in Tucson (Texas ) his cancer.