Robert Dewar facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Dewar
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Robert Dewar
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| Born |
Robert Berriedale Keith Dewar
21 June 1945 |
| Died | 30 June 2015 (aged 70) Bennington, Vermont, United States
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| Education | University of Chicago (B.S., 1964; Ph.D., 1968) |
| Known for | IFIP WG 2.1 member, chairperson AdaCore cofounder, president, CEO |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Illinois Institute of Technology New York University AdaCore |
| Thesis | (1968) |
| Doctoral students | Anita Borg |
Robert Berriedale Keith Dewar (June 21, 1945 – June 30, 2015) was an American computer scientist and teacher. He played a big part in creating programming languages and compilers, which are like translators for computers. He also strongly supported open-source software, which is software that anyone can use, change, and share freely. Robert Dewar was a co-founder, CEO, and president of the AdaCore software company. Outside of his computer work, he loved performing and playing music, especially with the Village Light Opera Group in New York City.
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Early Life and Learning
Robert Dewar was born in Oxford, England. His father, Michael J. S. Dewar, was a chemist who studied how chemicals work, and his mother, Mary Dewar, was a historian. In 1959, when Robert was 14, his family moved from England to Chicago, Illinois, because his father got a teaching job at the University of Chicago.
Robert went to the University of Chicago for his own studies. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1964 and a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1968. While he was studying in graduate school, he started working with computers and found his passion.
His Work in Computer Science
Robert Dewar began his teaching career at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1968. He taught there until 1975. After that, he moved to New York University (NYU) in 1975, where he became a full professor of computer science in 1976. He even led the computer science department there for a while.
He helped create international standards for computer programming. He was part of a group called International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) IFIP Working Group 2.1. This group helped define and support important computer languages like ALGOL 60 and ALGOL 68. Robert Dewar was involved in designing ALGOL 68 and even led the group from 1978 to 1983.
From 1994 to 1997, he was an associate director at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which is a famous place for math and computer science. Until he passed away, he was the president of AdaCore, a company he helped start in 1994. He was also the CEO of AdaCore until 2012.
Robert Dewar was a strong supporter of open-source software. He believed that computer programs should be free for everyone to use and improve. He was also an expert in the legal side of software, like copyright and patent laws. People often asked him to speak at conferences or to share his expert opinion in legal cases.
What He Built in Software
While at IIT, Robert Dewar created the first SPITBOL compiler in 1971. A compiler is a program that translates code written by humans into a language computers can understand. He also made Macro SPITBOL in 1974. These tools for the SNOBOL4 programming language became very popular and are still used today. In the 1980s, he was a main author of the Realia COBOL compiler, which is still used a lot in businesses.
Robert Dewar also worked with the Ada language. He was one of the experts who reviewed the design of Ada 1983, which was chosen by the United States Department of Defense (US DoD) for their projects. He helped lead a team at NYU that created Ada/Ed, which was the first Ada program to pass all the tough tests needed to use the official Ada name.
Later, Dewar and his colleague Edmond Schonberg created GNAT. GNAT is a free software compiler for Ada and is part of a bigger collection of tools called the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). Robert Dewar also worked on the SETL project at NYU and wrote a book about programming with sets. He even influenced the design of the ABC programming language. Interestingly, the creator of the popular Python language, Guido van Rossum, said that the use of the colon (:) in Python was inspired by Robert Dewar's wife!
His Life Outside Work
Robert Dewar was married to Karin Dewar, who passed away in 2013. They had two children, Jenny and Keith, and two grandchildren. People knew Robert as a fun and clever person to talk to.
He loved music and played the bassoon, recorder, and other instruments. He also enjoyed singing. For 35 years, he was a very active and important member of the Village Light Opera Group (VLOG). He did many things for them, from producing shows and being president to directing music and even performing on stage. He played many roles, including the main character in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The VLOG's performing arts center, called the Dewar Center, was named to honor Robert and Karin Dewar's help. He also played with other music groups until just a few months before he died.
Robert Dewar passed away from cancer at his home in Bennington, Vermont, when he was 70 years old.
See also
- Realia Spacemaker (1982)
