Richard Bird (computer scientist)

Richard Simpson Bird (4 February 1943 – 4 April 2022)[1] was an English computer scientist.

Richard Simpson Bird
Head photograph of an older white male smiling, with short grey hair and glasses
Professor Richard S. Bird
Born(1943-02-13)13 February 1943
London, England
Died4 April 2022(2022-04-04) (aged 79)
Known forAlgorithm design
Functional programming
Bird–Meertens formalism
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsUniversity of Reading
University of Oxford
Websitewww.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/richard.bird

Posts

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He was a Supernumerary Fellow of Computation at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, in Oxford England,[2] and former director of the Oxford University Computing Laboratory (now the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford).[3] Formerly, Bird was at the University of Reading.

Research interests

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Bird's research interests lay in algorithm design and functional programming, and he was known as a regular contributor to the Journal of Functional Programming, and as author of several books promoting use of the programming language Haskell, including Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell,[4] Thinking Functionally with Haskell,[5] Algorithm Design with Haskell co-authored with Jeremy Gibbons,[6] and other books on related topics.[7][8] His name is associated with the Bird–Meertens formalism, a calculus for deriving programs from specifications in a functional programming style.

Other organisational affilitations

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He was a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,[9] which specified, supports, and maintains the programming languages ALGOL 60 and ALGOL 68.[10]

References

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  1. ^ "Professor Richard Bird (4 February 1943 – 4 April 2022)". College News. Oxford University. 20 April 2022.
  2. ^ Fellows & Staff, Lincoln College, Oxford, UK.
  3. ^ Richard Bird, Oxford University Computing Laboratory, UK.
  4. ^ Bird, Richard (1998). Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall Press. ISBN 978-0-13-484346-9.
  5. ^ Bird, Richard (2014). Thinking Functionally with Haskell. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-45264-0.
  6. ^ Bird, Richard; Gibbons, Jeremy (July 2020). Algorithm Design with Haskell. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-49161-7.
  7. ^ Bird, Richard (1972–2006). "Publications". Oxford University Computing Laboratory. United Kingdom.
  8. ^ Bird, Richard (2021). "Richard Bird". University of Oxford Department of Computer Science. United Kingdom.
  9. ^ Jeuring, Johan; Meertens, Lambert; Guttmann, Walter (17 August 2016). "Profile of IFIP Working Group 2.1". Foswiki. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  10. ^ Swierstra, Doaitse; Gibbons, Jeremy; Meertens, Lambert (2 March 2011). "ScopeEtc: IFIP21: Foswiki". Foswiki. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
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