Anders Hejlsberg

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Anders Hejlsberg (Template:IPAc-en; Template:IPA; born 2 December 1960)<ref name="SH3"/> is a Danish software engineer who co-designed several programming languages and development tools. He was the original author of Turbo Pascal and the chief architect of Delphi. He currently works for Microsoft as the lead architect of C#<ref name="MTF"/> and core developer on TypeScript.<ref name="Typescript"/>

Early life

Hejlsberg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark. While at the university in 1980, he began writing programs for the Nascom microcomputer, including a Pascal compiler which was initially marketed as the Blue Label Software Pascal for the Nascom-2. However, he soon rewrote it for CP/M and DOS, marketing it first as Compas Pascal and later as PolyPascal. Later the product was licensed to Borland, and integrated into an IDE to become the Turbo Pascal system. Turbo Pascal competed with PolyPascal. The compiler itself was largely inspired by the "Tiny Pascal" compiler in Niklaus Wirth's "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs", one of the most influential computer science books of the time.<ref name="ACM"/>

At Borland

In Borland's hands, Turbo Pascal became one of the most commercially successful Pascal compilers.<ref name="Pascal"/> Hejlsberg remained with PolyData until the company came under financial stress and in 1989 he moved to California to become Chief Engineer at Borland. During this time, he developed Turbo Pascal further and became the chief architect for the team that produced Borland Delphi, which replaced Turbo Pascal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

At Microsoft

File:Anders Hejlsberg at PDC2008.jpg

Hejlsberg at the Professional Developers Conference 2008

In 1996, Hejlsberg left Borland and joined Microsoft. One of his first achievements was the J++ programming language and the Windows Foundation Classes; he also became a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and Technical Fellow. Since 2000, he has been the lead architect of the team developing the C# language. In 2012 Hejlsberg announced a new Microsoft project, TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

Hejlsberg received the 2001 Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award for his work on Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Together with Shon Katzenberger, Scott Wiltamuth, Todd Proebsting, Erik Meijer, Peter Hallam, and Peter Sollich, Anders was awarded a Technical Recognition Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement for their work on the C# language in 2007.<ref name="Channel9"/>

References

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Bibliography

Published works

The C# Programming Language, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, Template:ISBN, 2006-06-09
The C# Programming Language, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, Template:ISBN, 2008-10-18
The C# Programming Language, 4th edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, October 2010

External links

Template:Webarchive writes how Hejlsberg went to Microsoft: Microsoft offered Anders Hejlsberg a signing bonus of Template:Currency and stock options. Microsoft doubled the bonus to Template:Currency after Borland made a counter-offer. Hejlsberg left Borland in October 1996.
The C# Design Process
The Trouble with Checked Exceptions
Delegates, Components and Simplexity
Versioning, Virtual and Override
Contracts and Interoperability
Inappropriate Abstractions
Generics in C#, Java and C++
CLR Design Choices
Microsoft's Hejlsberg touts .NET, C-Omega (now LINQ) technologies
Deep Inside C#: An Interview with Microsoft Chief Architect Anders Hejlsberg
C#: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Video interview at channel9
Computerworld Interview with Anders on C#

Videos

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