Famous language designers listed here. Few languages are the work of just one person; but for many languages there is one person predominantly responsible for its design.
People who have designed more than one language or have made a career out of inventing languages:
- NiklausWirth (see WirthLanguages; Pascal, Algol-W, Modula, Oberon, etc)
- KenIverson (APL, J)
* GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage, etc.)
- WouterVanOortmerssen (must hold the record for number of languages designed)
People who have developed languages, in chronological order of their contributions:
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RichardPGabriel (CommonLisp)
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GeraldJaySussman (SchemeLanguage)
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AlainColmerauer (PrologLanguage)
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GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage -- with others in each case)
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TomStambaugh, JamesGosling (JavaLanguage--though some feel Gosling's technical contributions to Java are overstated)
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YukihiroMatsumoto aka "Matz" (RubyLanguage)
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PeterLandin (ISWIM)
People who had influence over language design, even if they did not invent a language single-handedly:
- a committee (CobolLanguage) COBOL was the work of a committee, and should not be credited to GraceHopper as is usually done; see for instance the IEEE article "The Real Creators of Cobol", March/April 2000 (Vol. 17, No. 2) p30-32, http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/so/2000/02/s2030abs.htm
- JohnBackus, PeterNaur, H. Rutishauer, et al. (AlgolSixty, FpLanguage).
- RobertKowalski, his work on automatic theorem proving created the technological underpinnings of PrologLanguage.
some of whom eventually become LanguageLawyers...
See also LanguageDesignersOnWiki, InstantLanguageForm