Douglas McIlroy
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Douglas_McIlroy_large.jpg
Douglas_McIlroy_large.jpg
Portrait of Douglas McIlroy taken at the NATO conference in Garmisch 1968, courtesy of Brian Randell.
Douglas McIlroy is a professor of computer science, mathematician, engineer and famous programmer. He is known for having invented:
- The pipes and filters architecture of UNIX
- The entire concept of software componentry
- Several UNIX tools, such as spell, diff, sort, join, graph, speak, tr, etc.
He earned a Bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University in 1954, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT in 1959.