Programming Languages Achievement Award

Given by ACM SIGPLAN to recognize an individual or individuals who has made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of programming languages. The contribution can be a single event or a life-time of achievement. The award includes a prize of $5,000. The award is presented at SIGPLAN's PLDI conference the following June.

Recipients

2010: Gordon D. Plotkin

Citation

"Professor Gordon D. Plotkin has made fundamental advances in almost every area of the theory of programming languages. His contributions have helped to establish the mathematical foundations on which the scientific study of programming languages are based. His 1975 paper "Call-by-name, Call-by-value, and the λ-calculus" exposed the relationship between the reduction semantics of the λ-calculus and its operational semantics, as defined by Landin's SECD machine. In the process, he defined what it meant for a calculus and a semantics to correspond: this launched the study of operational semantics as it is now understood. He invented Structural Operational Semantics as a technique for specifying the semantics of a wide range of programming languages, concurrent as well as sequential; this form of semantics is now one of the basic working tools of researchers developing new programming languages and type systems.

Plotkin's contributions to the development of the mathematical theory of domains, and its applications to the denotational semantics of programming languages, have been of fundamental importance: they include his powerdomain construction, systematic development of the general theory of the solution of recursive domain equations, and his work on PCF and the full abstraction problem.

Plotkin's work with Glynn Winskel on event structures is the basis for reasoning about distributed systems, process algebras, and reactive systems. Event structures have been enormously influential in the development of models of concurrency. He has also investigated the logical foundations of computer security, including logics for specifying authorization policies for computer systems. Plotkin continues to make bold and deep contributions, for example, in his current work on the algebraic theory of effects, and on languages and calculi for biochemical modelling. Taken together, Gordon Plotkin's contributions over the past four decades exhibit a range and depth unmatched in the field."

2009: Rod Burstall

Citation

"Professor Rod Burstall has made deep, seminal contributions to the design of programming languages and the field of program verification. These contributions, which many of us now take for granted, include the introduction of algebraic datatypes coupled with pattern-matching clausal function definitions as found in Hope, ML, Haskell and Coq; the generalization and use of structural induction for proving properties of programs; the fold-unfold method for deriving efficient, provably-correct programs from easy to understand prototypes; mechanisms for reasoning about pointer-based, imperative programs that directly led to the development of separation logic; proof techniques and connections to modal logic for reasoning about concurrent programs; and the use of dependent types and algebraic specifications for constructing module systems that directly influenced SML and OCaml. Through these amazing contributions and his collaborations and mentorship, he helped build one of the most important centers of programming research at Edinburgh, which was eventually institutionalized as the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science."

2008: Barbara Liskov

Citation

"Professor Barbara Liskov has had tremendous impact on the fields of programming languages, operating systems, distributed systems, and information security. Much of her early research focus was on data abstraction, modularity, and encapsulation as typified by the CLU programming language. At the time, CLU incorporated a number of advanced features, such as modular encapsulation of abstract data types, bounded polymorphism, exceptions, and iterator abstraction that had clear influence over successive languages including Ada, Modula-3, C++, and Java. Through CLU, the related books and articles, her work on behavioral subtyping, and her courses on programming methodology, Professor Liskov changed the way that a generation of engineers thought about and constructed large software systems. Professor Liskov's work on the Argus project also brought to the fore the idea of integrating transactions and orthogonal persistence into a programming language with an aim towards building reliable distributed systems. More recently, her work on information flow control helped to start a research focus on end-to-end security using language-based mechanisms for enforcement."

2007: Niklaus Wirth

2006: Ron Cytron, Jeanne Ferrante, Barry Rosen, Mark Wegman, and Kenneth Zadeck

2005: Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

2004: John Backus

2003: John Reynolds

2002: John McCarthy

2001: Robin Milner

2000: Susan Graham

1999: Ken Kennedy

1998: Fran Allen

1997: Guy Steele

Selection Committee
The Programming Language Achievement Award is determined by a committee consisting of program committee chairs of POPL, PLDI, ICFP, and OOPSLA, and a chair who is an EC member appointed by the EC.  Program chairs for conferences held in year y should decide the award for year y+1.  Program chairs for year y should also take responsibility for publicizing the award at their conference in year y, and for liaising with their conference if it is a likely venue for the award winner to speak at in year y+1.  They should also widely encourage the submission of nominations.  If a program chair cannot participate, a replacement may be appointed by the steering committee for the corresponding conference.

• Name, address, phone number, and email address of the person making the nomination (the nominator).
• Name, address, phone number, and email address of the candidate for whom the award is recommended (the nominee).
• A short statement (200-500 words) explaining why the nominee deserves the award in question.
• Names and email addresses of 5-10 people who the nominator believes will support the nomination. The awards committee will ask some of these people for their opinions.