Don’t know how to get to your destination? Switch on Google Maps. Can’t remember the name of a song? Hum it to a song recognition app. Using technology to solve problems today seems like second nature to us. But without computer scientists, who pioneered incredible software, programs and computer systems, all of it would not have been possible.
Click start to play today’s Word Search, which pays tribute to famous computer scientists – many of whom are alive, even today. Find them all!
Here are three pioneers of computer science that are still making their mark in the field:
1. Tim Berners-Lee
Listed time and again as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century by international publishers like Time magazine, British computer scientist Berners-Lee is the inventor of the world wide web. He pioneered the groundbreaking technology in 1989 while working at European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). Despite changing the world forever with his invention, Berners-Lee isn’t resting on his laurels. He is now working on something called Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0. The goal of the project is to make Internet data machine-readable.
2. Bjarne Stroustrup
The Danish computer scientist, who currently lives and works in New York, is best known for his invention and development of the C++ programming language. Although he invented the language about 40 years ago, it still remains one of the most widely used programming languages. Favoured by developers for its power and flexibility, it’s used in operating systems, web browsers, search engines like Google, games, business applications and a lot of other areas of computing. Stroustrup, and the nearly 400 members in C++’s standards committee, continue to add new features and capabilities to the language, making it more expressive today than ever before.
3. James Gosling
Often called ‘Dr Java’, the Canadian computer scientist is the founder and lead designer of Java, one of the most popular programming languages in the world, particularly for client-server web applications. The computer scientist has worked at the forefront of pioneering technology, at Sun Microsystems, Google, and even Amazon Web Services. He is known to have written software for the Waveglider, an autonomous ocean-faring robot, and also recently worked on Jackpot, a research project that focused on making programming easier for everyone.
Did you know about these pathbreaking computer scientists? Play today’s Word Search and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.
