David Ungar
Encyclopedia
David Ungar, an American
computer scientist
, co-created the Self programming language
with Randall Smith. The SELF development environment's animated user experience was described in the influential paper Animation: From Cartoons to the User Interface co-written with Bay-Wei Chang, which won a lasting impact award at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology 2004.
Ungar graduated as a doctor of philosophy
in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley
, in 1985. His doctoral advisor was David Patterson and his dissertation was entitled The Design and Evaluation of a High-Performance Smalltalk System; it won the 1986 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award. He was an assistant professor at Stanford University
, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Computer Systems Lab, where he taught programming languages and computer architecture, from 1985 to 1990. In 1991, he joined Sun Microsystems
and became a distinguished engineer. In 2006 he was recognized as a Distinguished Engineer by the Association for Computing Machinery
and in 2010 a Fellow. In 2007, he joined IBM
Research, where he is currently a member of the Dynamic Optimization Group. Dr. Ungar holds 20 US patents.
In 2006 the 1987 Self paper, coauthored by Ungar and Randall B. Smith, was selected as one of the three most influential OOPSLA
papers presented between 1986 and 1996.
Ungar's 1984 paper, Generation Scavenging: A non-disruptive high performance storage reclamation algorithm. won a Retrospective ACM SIGSOFT
Impact Paper Award in 2008.
Dave Ungar was awarded the Dahl-Nygaard Prize
in 2009.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
computer scientist
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
, co-created the Self programming language
Self programming language
Self is an object-oriented programming language based on the concept of prototypes. Essentially an extreme dialect of Smalltalk, it was used mainly as an experimental test system for language design in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2006, Self was still being developed as part of the Klein project, which...
with Randall Smith. The SELF development environment's animated user experience was described in the influential paper Animation: From Cartoons to the User Interface co-written with Bay-Wei Chang, which won a lasting impact award at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology 2004.
Ungar graduated as a doctor of philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, in 1985. His doctoral advisor was David Patterson and his dissertation was entitled The Design and Evaluation of a High-Performance Smalltalk System; it won the 1986 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award. He was an assistant professor at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Computer Systems Lab, where he taught programming languages and computer architecture, from 1985 to 1990. In 1991, he joined Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and became a distinguished engineer. In 2006 he was recognized as a Distinguished Engineer by the Association for Computing Machinery
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
and in 2010 a Fellow. In 2007, he joined IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Research, where he is currently a member of the Dynamic Optimization Group. Dr. Ungar holds 20 US patents.
In 2006 the 1987 Self paper, coauthored by Ungar and Randall B. Smith, was selected as one of the three most influential OOPSLA
OOPSLA
OOPSLA is an annual ACM research conference. OOPSLA mainly takes place in the United States, while the sister conference of OOPSLA, ECOOP, is typically held in Europe...
papers presented between 1986 and 1996.
Ungar's 1984 paper, Generation Scavenging: A non-disruptive high performance storage reclamation algorithm. won a Retrospective ACM SIGSOFT
SIGSOFT
The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering provides a forum for computing professionals from industry, government and academia to examine principles, practices, and new research results in software engineering....
Impact Paper Award in 2008.
Dave Ungar was awarded the Dahl-Nygaard Prize
Dahl-Nygaard Prize
The Dahl-Nygaard Prize is awarded annually to a senior researcher with outstanding career contributions and a younger researcher who has demonstrated great potential...
in 2009.
Major publications
- The History of Self, David Ungar, Randall B. Smith. ACM HOPL-III, 2007. Proc. of the Third ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages Conference (HOPL-III), B. Ryder, B, Hailpern (Eds.), San Diego, California, USA, 9–10 June 2007. Paper and video at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844.1238853&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&type=series&idx=SERIES003&part=series&WantType=Proceedings&title=HOPL&CFID=32568898&CFTOKEN=60061704.
- Reconciling Responsiveness with Performance in Pure Object-Oriented Languages, Urs Hölzle and David Ungar. TOPLAS 18, 4 (July 1996).
- Programming as an Experience: The Inspiration for Self, R. Smith & D. Ungar, invited paper, ECOOP’95.
- Animation: From Cartoons to the User Interface, Bay-Wei Chang and David Ungar, UIST 1993
- Self: The Power of Simplicity, Randall B. Smith and David Ungar, OOPSLA, October, 1987
- Generation Scavenging: A non-disruptive high performance storage reclamation algorithm., David Ungar, 1984
Selected patents
- Perceptual-based color selection for text highlighting. (Jan. 11, 2005)
- Method and apparatus for increasing scavenging garbage collection effectiveness - (Jan 20, 2004)
- Method and apparatus for testing a process in a computer system - (Jul 15, 2003)
- Method and apparatus for finding bugs related to garbage collection in a virtual machine - (Dec 4, 2001)
- Method and apparatus of translating and executing native code in a virtual machine environment - (Aug 28, 2001)
- Method and apparatus for supporting efficient programming in dynamic pointer-safe languages - (Aug 21, 2001)