John Fitch is a 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....

, mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Born in Barnsley

Barnsley

Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, north of the city of Sheffield, south of Leeds and west of Doncaster. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and...

, Yorkshire, England in 1945, he was educated at Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. According to his (un-)official biography, "despite his long hair and beard, and the uncertain spelling of his name, was never a hippie".

Currently, he holds the Chair of Software Engineering at Bath, which his biography

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

 claims is "a subject about which he knows little". He currently lectures for the module CM20029: The Essence of Compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

s.

Fitch has worked with relativity

Theory of relativity

The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....

, planetary astronomy, computer algebra and Lisp. He won the Adams Prize

Adams Prize

The Adams Prize is awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and St John's College to a young, UK based mathematician for first-class international research in the Mathematical Sciences....

 for Mathematics in 1975 for a joint essay with David Barton entitled Applications of algebraic manipulative systems to physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

.

Fitch is also the project leader for Csound

Csound

Csound is a computer programming language for dealing with sound, also known as a sound compiler or an audio programming language, or more precisely, a C-based audio DSL. It is called Csound because it is written in C, as opposed to some of its predecessors...

 at sourceforge

SourceForge

SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...

. He has had a leading role in the development of the software since the early 1990s.

External links

• John Fitch's home page at Bath