This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions.
See also: List of computer scientists
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A Clifford Adams - author of the UseModWiki wiki software Eric Allman - sendmail, syslog Bill Atkinson - QuickDraw, HyperCard B Donald Becker - Linux Ethernet drivers, Beowulf clustering Sir Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the World Wide Web Brian Behlendorf - Apache Daniel J. Bernstein - djbdns Dan Bricklin - co-creator of VisiCalc, the first personal spreadsheet program C Steve Capps - co-creator of Macintosh and Newton John Carmack - first person shooters Doom, Quake Steve Chamberlain - BFD, Cygwin Brian Collins - a developer of Feejt Patrick Collison - author of Isaac Alan Cox - a developer of the Linux kernel Brad Cox - Objective-C Ward Cunningham - inventor of the WikiWiki concept Dave Cutler - architect of Windows NT, VMS D L. Peter Deutsch - Ghostscript Edsger Dijkstra - ALGOL, Shortest Path First, 'GOTO considered harmful' E F Jay Fenlason - original hack, GAS G Bill Gates - Altair BASIC, Apple II BASIC, founded Microsoft John Gilmore - GDB James Gosling - Java, Gosling Emacs, NeWS Paul Graham - Yahoo! Store, On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp Ralph Griswold - co-creator of SNOBOL and creator of Icon programming language. H Cecil Hastings - wrote the classic Approximations for Digital Computers 1950s formulas for sin cos etc. Andy Hertzfeld - co-creator of Macintosh, co-founder of General Magic C. A. R. Hoare - first implementation of quicksort, Algol 60 compiler Grace Hopper - Navy Mark I computer, FLOW-MATIC (which heavily influenced COBOL) I Miguel de Icaza - GNOME project leader J Bo Jangeborg - ZX Spectrum games Steven C. Johnson - yacc Lynne Jolitz - 386BSD William Jolitz - 386BSD Bill Joy - BSD, vi; founded Sun Microsystems K Mitch Kapor - Lotus 1-2-3, founded Lotus Development Corporation Stan Kelly-Bootle - Manchester Mark I, The Devil's DP Dictionary Brian Kernighan - AWK (co-author) Donald E. Knuth - TeX, CWeb, The Art of Computer Programming L Michael Lesk - Lex Ada Lovelace - First programmer (of Babbage Machines) M Yukihiro Matsumoto - Ruby John McCarthy - Lisp Douglas McIlroy - Unix tools Kirk McKusick - BSD Bertrand Meyer - Eiffel, Object-oriented Software Construction, Design by contract Jeff Minter - Psychedelic, and often llama-related video games Dave Moon - MacLisp, ZetaLisp Chuck Moore - Forth Urban Müller - Brainfuck language N Kristen Nygaard - SIMULA P Alexey Pajitnov - inventor of the game Tetris on the Electronica 60 Charles Petzold - author of many Microsoft Windows programming books Q R Eric S. Raymond - fetchmail, The Cathedral and the Bazaar Dennis Ritchie - C, Unix Mark Rochkind - SCCS, see SCM Guido van Rossum - Python S Bill Schelter - GNU Maxima, GNU Common Lisp Cliff Shaw - IPL, the first AI language Charles Simonyi - Hungarian notation, Microsoft Word Henry Spencer - C-News,Regex Richard Stallman - Emacs, GCC, GNU Guy Steele - Common Lisp, Scheme Bjarne Stroustrup - C++ Gerald Jay Sussman - Scheme Tim Sweeney - The Unreal engine, UnrealScript, ZZT T Andrew Tanenbaum - Minix Avie Tevanian - author of the Mach kernel Ken Thompson - Unix, B (precursor of C) Michael Tiemann - GCC Linus Torvalds - original author of the Linux kernel Andrew Tridgell - Samba, Rsync U V Wietse Venema - Postfix, SATAN, TCP Wrapper Paul Vixie - BIND W Larry Wall - warp, rn, patch, Perl David Wheeler - invented the subroutine Niklaus Wirth - Pascal Don Woods - INTERCAL, Colossal Cave Adventure Steve Wozniak - Breakout, Apple Integer BASIC, founded Apple Computer (with Steve Jobs) X Y Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver
F Jay Fenlason - original hack, GAS G Bill Gates - Altair BASIC, Apple II BASIC, founded Microsoft John Gilmore - GDB James Gosling - Java, Gosling Emacs, NeWS Paul Graham - Yahoo! Store, On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp Ralph Griswold - co-creator of SNOBOL and creator of Icon programming language. H Cecil Hastings - wrote the classic Approximations for Digital Computers 1950s formulas for sin cos etc. Andy Hertzfeld - co-creator of Macintosh, co-founder of General Magic C. A. R. Hoare - first implementation of quicksort, Algol 60 compiler Grace Hopper - Navy Mark I computer, FLOW-MATIC (which heavily influenced COBOL) I Miguel de Icaza - GNOME project leader J Bo Jangeborg - ZX Spectrum games Steven C. Johnson - yacc Lynne Jolitz - 386BSD William Jolitz - 386BSD Bill Joy - BSD, vi; founded Sun Microsystems K Mitch Kapor - Lotus 1-2-3, founded Lotus Development Corporation Stan Kelly-Bootle - Manchester Mark I, The Devil's DP Dictionary Brian Kernighan - AWK (co-author) Donald E. Knuth - TeX, CWeb, The Art of Computer Programming L Michael Lesk - Lex Ada Lovelace - First programmer (of Babbage Machines) M Yukihiro Matsumoto - Ruby John McCarthy - Lisp Douglas McIlroy - Unix tools Kirk McKusick - BSD Bertrand Meyer - Eiffel, Object-oriented Software Construction, Design by contract Jeff Minter - Psychedelic, and often llama-related video games Dave Moon - MacLisp, ZetaLisp Chuck Moore - Forth Urban Müller - Brainfuck language N Kristen Nygaard - SIMULA P Alexey Pajitnov - inventor of the game Tetris on the Electronica 60 Charles Petzold - author of many Microsoft Windows programming books Q R Eric S. Raymond - fetchmail, The Cathedral and the Bazaar Dennis Ritchie - C, Unix Mark Rochkind - SCCS, see SCM Guido van Rossum - Python S Bill Schelter - GNU Maxima, GNU Common Lisp Cliff Shaw - IPL, the first AI language Charles Simonyi - Hungarian notation, Microsoft Word Henry Spencer - C-News,Regex Richard Stallman - Emacs, GCC, GNU Guy Steele - Common Lisp, Scheme Bjarne Stroustrup - C++ Gerald Jay Sussman - Scheme Tim Sweeney - The Unreal engine, UnrealScript, ZZT T Andrew Tanenbaum - Minix Avie Tevanian - author of the Mach kernel Ken Thompson - Unix, B (precursor of C) Michael Tiemann - GCC Linus Torvalds - original author of the Linux kernel Andrew Tridgell - Samba, Rsync U V Wietse Venema - Postfix, SATAN, TCP Wrapper Paul Vixie - BIND W Larry Wall - warp, rn, patch, Perl David Wheeler - invented the subroutine Niklaus Wirth - Pascal Don Woods - INTERCAL, Colossal Cave Adventure Steve Wozniak - Breakout, Apple Integer BASIC, founded Apple Computer (with Steve Jobs) X Y Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver
R Eric S. Raymond - fetchmail, The Cathedral and the Bazaar Dennis Ritchie - C, Unix Mark Rochkind - SCCS, see SCM Guido van Rossum - Python S Bill Schelter - GNU Maxima, GNU Common Lisp Cliff Shaw - IPL, the first AI language Charles Simonyi - Hungarian notation, Microsoft Word Henry Spencer - C-News,Regex Richard Stallman - Emacs, GCC, GNU Guy Steele - Common Lisp, Scheme Bjarne Stroustrup - C++ Gerald Jay Sussman - Scheme Tim Sweeney - The Unreal engine, UnrealScript, ZZT T Andrew Tanenbaum - Minix Avie Tevanian - author of the Mach kernel Ken Thompson - Unix, B (precursor of C) Michael Tiemann - GCC Linus Torvalds - original author of the Linux kernel Andrew Tridgell - Samba, Rsync U V Wietse Venema - Postfix, SATAN, TCP Wrapper Paul Vixie - BIND W Larry Wall - warp, rn, patch, Perl David Wheeler - invented the subroutine Niklaus Wirth - Pascal Don Woods - INTERCAL, Colossal Cave Adventure Steve Wozniak - Breakout, Apple Integer BASIC, founded Apple Computer (with Steve Jobs) X Y Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver
V Wietse Venema - Postfix, SATAN, TCP Wrapper Paul Vixie - BIND W Larry Wall - warp, rn, patch, Perl David Wheeler - invented the subroutine Niklaus Wirth - Pascal Don Woods - INTERCAL, Colossal Cave Adventure Steve Wozniak - Breakout, Apple Integer BASIC, founded Apple Computer (with Steve Jobs) X Y Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver
Y Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver
Z Egon Zakrajšek - pioneer of computer science in Slovenia, texbooks for Z-23 assembler, structran Jamie Zawinski - Lucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreensaver