10 Greatest Computer Programmers In History

The world of programming has come a long way and given rise to the most innovative and advanced programs, some of which were beyond anyone's imagination. But before we got to this, there were men and women who paved the way for what we have today.

Here they are!


1. Ada Lovelace

It may be seen as a new age thing with millions of lines of codes and imensely powerful computers, but one of the pioneers of programming was a woman named Ada Augusta King, a.k.a. Ada Lovelace. She was a mathematician who worked on Charles Babbage's mechanical general purpose computer known as the Analytical Engine.

2. Niklaus Wirth

Widely recognised as one of the pioneer's of programming, this is the man who created languages like Pascal, Euler, Algol and many others.

3. Bill Gates

A list of influential or greatest programmers can never be complete without mentioning the founder and creator of Microsoft. He has both admirers and haters, but no one can deny his contribution.

4. James Gosling

This is the man who created the Java programming language, which is arguably one of the most influential languages of all time.

5. Guido van Rossum

Have you heard of him? You've definitely heard of the language he created. This is the man behind the Python programming language.

6. Kenneth Thompson

Call him Ken because that's what the hacker community calls him. He has worked for Google and developed the Go programming language while working there. He also developed the original Unix operating system and a programming language called B, which was the predecessor to the illustrious C programming language.

7. Donald Knuth

This man is known as the father of anaylsis of algorithms for his contributions to the field of analysis and computational complexity of algorithms.

8. Brian Kernighan

He is the co-creator and developer of the Unix, AWK and AMPL languages.

9. Tim Berners-Lee

If you don't know this name then you should really work on increasing your awareness. This is the man who created the World Wide Web and hence gave us the lives we have today.

10. Bjarne Stroustrup

This man created the C++ programming language. Yes, the language that gave rise to so many of the best known programs and programming languages.

11. Linus Torvalds

Little needs to be said about this man. He's the creator of the Linux kernel, which is the base for so many operating systems.

12. Dennis Ritchie

C++ is an offspring of the C programming language and Dennis Ritchie is the man who created C.