| Name | Occupation | Birth | Death | Known for |
|---|
| Michael Abrash |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Graphics Programming Black Book |
| Scott Adams |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1954 |
|
Adventureland |
| Howard Aiken |
Physicist |
8-Mar-1900 |
14-Mar-1973 |
Designer of early computers |
| Gene Amdahl |
Engineer |
16-Nov-1922 |
|
Parallel computing pioneer |
| Marc Andreessen |
Computer Programmer |
26-Apr-1971 |
|
Co-Founder of Netscape |
| Bill Atkinson |
Computer Programmer |
1951 |
|
Creator of HyperCard, QuickDraw, MacPaint |
| Ed Averett |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Prolific Odyssey 2 game programmer |
| John Backus |
Computer Programmer |
3-Dec-1924 |
17-Mar-2007 |
Inventor of BNF, led FORTRAN team |
| Richard A. Bartle |
Computer Programmer |
10-Jan-1960 |
|
MUD |
| Brian Behlendorf |
Computer Programmer |
30-Mar-1973 |
|
Author of Apache web server |
| Tim Berners-Lee |
Computer Programmer |
8-Jun-1955 |
|
Inventor of the World Wide Web |
| Daniel J. Bernstein |
Computer Programmer |
29-Oct-1971 |
|
Bernstein v. United States |
| Danielle Berry |
Computer Programmer |
19-Feb-1949 |
3-Jul-1998 |
Transsexual designer of M.U.L.E. |
| Marc Blank |
Computer Programmer |
1954 |
|
Programmer behind Zork |
| James Blinn |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1948 |
|
3D computer imaging pioneer |
| Grady Booch |
Computer Programmer |
27-Feb-1955 |
|
Unified Modeling Language |
| Steve Bourne |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
/bin/sh |
| Tim Bray |
Computer Programmer |
21-Jun-1955 |
|
Co-Inventor of XML |
| Fred Brooks |
Computer Programmer |
19-Apr-1931 |
|
Father of the IBM System 360 |
| Bill Budge |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1954 |
|
Programmed Raster Blaster |
| Orkut Buyukkokten |
Computer Programmer |
6-Feb-1976 |
|
Designed Google's Orkut social network |
| Steve Capps |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Apple Newton, SoundEdit |
| John Carmack |
Computer Programmer |
20-Aug-1970 |
|
Lead programmer of Doom, Quake |
| Steve Cartwright |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1955 |
|
Barnstorming, Seaquest, Frostbite |
| Ed Catmull |
Business |
31-Mar-1945 |
|
Pixar Co-Founder, Disney Animation president |
| Vint Cerf |
Scientist |
23-Jun-1943 |
|
Co-Designed Internet's TCP-IP protocol |
| Kit Clayton |
Electronic Musician |
1974 |
|
Orthlorng Musork |
| Bram Cohen |
Computer Programmer |
1975 |
|
Creator of BitTorrent |
| Alan Cox |
Computer Programmer |
22-Jul-1968 |
|
Linux kernel developer |
| David Crane |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1954 |
|
Pitfall!, Freeway |
| Chris Crawford |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1950 |
|
Balance of Power |
| Ward Cunningham |
Computer Programmer |
26-May-1949 |
|
Wiki inventor |
| Dave Cutler |
Computer Programmer |
13-Mar-1942 |
|
Father of Windows NT |
| Don Daglow |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1953 |
|
Utopia for the Intellivision |
| Theo de Raadt |
Computer Programmer |
19-May-1968 |
|
Developer of OpenBSD operating system |
| John Diebold |
Author |
8-Jun-1926 |
26-Dec-2005 |
Advocate of automation |
| Edsger Dijkstra |
Computer Programmer |
11-May-1930 |
6-Aug-2002 |
Enemy of the goto statement |
| Bruce Eckel |
Computer Programmer |
8-Jul-1957 |
|
Thinking in Java |
| John Presper Eckert |
Computer Programmer |
9-Apr-1919 |
3-Jun-1995 |
ENIAC, BINAC, and UNIVAC I computers |
| Wallace J. Eckert |
Astronomer |
19-Jun-1902 |
24-Aug-1971 |
First scientist hired by IBM |
| Brendan Eich |
Computer Programmer |
1961 |
|
Invented JavaScript for Netscape |
| Taher Elgamal |
Computer Programmer |
18-Aug-1955 |
|
Inventor of the Elgamal crypto algorithm |
| Jim Ellis |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1956 |
28-Jun-2001 |
Usenet co-creator |
| Doug Engelbart |
Computer Programmer |
30-Jan-1925 |
|
Pioneer of human-computer interaction |
| Shawn Fanning |
Computer Programmer |
22-Nov-1980 |
|
Founded the Napster mp3 free-for-all |
| Dan Farmer |
Computer Programmer |
5-Apr-1962 |
|
Cowrote SATAN security auditing tool |
| Ed Felten |
Computer Programmer |
25-Mar-1963 |
|
Broke SDMI |
| Chuck Forsberg |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1944 |
|
Creator of ZMODEM |
| Martin Fowler |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Manifesto For Agile Software Development |
| Bob Frankston |
Computer Programmer |
14-Jun-1949 |
|
Programmer of Visicalc |
| Tod Frye |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1955 |
|
Ported Pac-Man to the Atari 2600 |
| Rob Fulop |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1958 |
|
Demon Attack, Cosmic Ark |
| Erich Gamma |
Computer Programmer |
1961 |
|
Design Patterns |
| Bill Gates |
Business |
28-Oct-1955 |
|
Co-Founder of Microsoft |
| John Giannandrea |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Chief Technology Officer at Tellme |
| Steve Gibson |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1955 |
|
Computer industry gadfly |
| Marc Goodman |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
The Bilestoad |
| Dan Gorlin |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1956 |
|
Choplifter |
| Ronald Graham |
Mathematician |
31-Oct-1935 |
|
Mathematician, Computer Scientist |
| Philip Greenspun |
Computer Programmer |
28-Sep-1963 |
|
ArsDigita, Photo.net |
| Virgil Griffith |
Computer Programmer |
6-Mar-1983 |
|
Author of WikiScanner |
| Bathsheba Grossman |
Sculptor |
1966 |
|
Mathematical sculptor |
| Scott Hassan |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1970 |
|
eGroups, Willow Garage |
| Matthew Haughey |
Blogger |
10-Oct-1972 |
|
MetaFilter, PVRblog |
| Jeff Hawkins |
Inventor |
1-Jun-1957 |
|
Inventor of the Palm Pilot and Treo |
| Martin Hellman |
Inventor |
2-Oct-1945 |
|
Public key cryptographer |
| Keith Henson |
Victim |
1942 |
|
Scientology Victim |
| Andy Hertzfeld |
Computer Programmer |
6-Apr-1953 |
|
Macintosh designer |
| Starr Roxanne Hiltz |
Sociologist |
c. 1943 |
|
Mother of on-line education |
| Grace Murray Hopper |
Computer Programmer |
9-Dec-1906 |
1-Jan-1992 |
Computer programming pioneer |
| Randall Hyde |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1960 |
|
Art of Assembly Language |
| Miguel de Icaza |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1973 |
|
Founder of Gnome project |
| Eugene Jarvis |
Computer Programmer |
1955 |
|
Defender, Robotron, Smash TV |
| Tom Jennings |
Computer Programmer |
1955 |
|
Author of FidoNet BBS protocols |
| Jon Johansen |
Computer Programmer |
18-Nov-1983 |
|
Wrote the DeCSS program to decrypt DVDs |
| Bill Joy |
Computer Programmer |
8-Nov-1954 |
|
BSD designer, C shell, vi, Java |
| Isamu Kaneko |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1971 |
|
Mr. 47, developed WinNY p2p program |
| Larry Kaplan |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1952 |
|
Kaboom! |
| Phil Karlton |
Computer Programmer |
28-Feb-1947 |
20-Jun-1997 |
Netscape Principal Curmudgeon |
| Phil Katz |
Computer Programmer |
3-Nov-1962 |
14-Apr-2000 |
Creator of PKZIP |
| Alan Kay |
Computer Programmer |
17-May-1940 |
|
Father of Object-Oriented Programming |
| Brian Kernighan |
Computer Programmer |
1942 |
|
The C Programming Language, awk |
| Garry Kitchen |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1958 |
|
Keystone Capers |
| Donald E. Knuth |
Computer Programmer |
10-Jan-1938 |
|
The Art of Computer Programming |
| Kai Krause |
Computer Programmer |
1957 |
|
Kai's Power Tools |
| Patrick Kroupa |
Author |
20-Jan-1968 |
|
Lord Digital of LOD, Mindvox |
| Ray Kurzweil |
Inventor |
12-Feb-1948 |
|
Age of Spiritual Machines |
| Dave Lebling |
Computer Programmer |
30-Oct-1949 |
|
Co-Founder of Infocom, helped write Zork |
| Rasmus Lerdorf |
Computer Programmer |
22-Nov-1968 |
|
Creator of PHP programming language |
| Lord British |
Computer Programmer |
4-Jul-1961 |
|
Ultima series creator |
| Ada Lovelace |
Mathematician |
10-Dec-1815 |
27-Nov-1852 |
Programmed the (theoretical) difference engine |
| Steve Maguire |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Writing Solid Code |
| Yukihiro Matsumoto |
Computer Programmer |
14-Apr-1965 |
|
Creator of Ruby programming language |
| John McCarthy |
Computer Programmer |
4-Sep-1927 |
24-Oct-2011 |
Created LISP programming language |
| Steve McConnell |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1963 |
|
Author of Code Complete |
| Sid Meier |
Computer Programmer |
1954 |
|
Father of Computer Gaming |
| Steve Meretzky |
Computer Programmer |
1-May-1957 |
|
Leather Goddesses of Phobos |
| Alan Miller |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Robot Tank, Surround |
| Lou Montulli |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1971 |
|
Invented BLINK tag, wrote Lynx browser |
| Charles H. Moore |
Computer Programmer |
1938 |
|
Forth programming language |
| Robert Morris, Jr. |
Computer Programmer |
8-Nov-1965 |
|
Author of 1988 Huge Internet Worm |
| Craig Mundie |
Business |
c. 1949 |
|
CTO of Microsoft |
| Mike Muuss |
Computer Programmer |
16-Oct-1958 |
20-Nov-2000 |
Ping |
| Graham Nelson |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1968 |
|
Created Inform programming language |
| Ted Nelson |
Computer Programmer |
17-Jun-1937 |
|
Hypertext pioneer, Xanadu |
| Craig Newmark |
Computer Programmer |
2-Dec-1952 |
|
Founder, Craigslist |
| Peter Norton |
Computer Programmer |
14-Nov-1943 |
|
Retired computer utilities programmer |
| Ray Ozzie |
Computer Programmer |
20-Nov-1955 |
|
Microsoft Chief Software Architect |
| Alexey Pajitnov |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1956 |
|
Helped invent Tetris |
| Drazen Pantic |
Activist |
1956 |
|
Micromedia activist |
| Seymour Papert |
Computer Programmer |
1-Mar-1928 |
|
Programming language LOGO |
| Tom Paquin |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Netscape Fellow |
| Ken Perlin |
Scientist |
c. 1957 |
|
Perlin noise |
| Charles Petzold |
Computer Programmer |
2-Feb-1953 |
|
Windows programming guru |
| Marcus Ranum |
Computer Programmer |
5-Nov-1962 |
|
Tenable Network Security |
| Jef Raskin |
Computer Programmer |
9-Mar-1943 |
26-Feb-2005 |
Designed Macintosh human interface |
| Eric S. Raymond |
Computer Programmer |
4-Dec-1957 |
|
The New Hacker's Dictionary |
| Hans Reiser |
Computer Programmer |
19-Dec-1963 |
|
ReiserFS |
| Dennis Ritchie |
Computer Programmer |
9-Sep-1941 |
12-Oct-2011 |
Co-Creator of UNIX |
| Ron Rivest |
Computer Programmer |
1947 |
|
The R in RSA |
| Warren Robinett |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1951 |
|
Atari 2600 game Adventure |
| John Romero |
Computer Programmer |
28-Oct-1967 |
|
Doom, Quake, Daikatana |
| Aviel Rubin |
Computer Programmer |
8-Nov-1967 |
|
Computer security expert at Johns Hopkins |
| Rudy Rucker |
Novelist |
22-Mar-1946 |
|
Author of Wetware series |
| Mark Russinovich |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1966 |
|
Microsoft Windows Internals |
| Hironobu Sakaguchi |
Computer Programmer |
14-Nov-1962 |
|
Created Final Fantasy videogame series |
| Bruce Schneier |
Computer Programmer |
15-Jan-1964 |
|
Applied Cryptography |
| Robert Sedgewick |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1946 |
|
Algorithms |
| Adi Shamir |
Mathematician |
1952 |
|
The S in RSA |
| Carol Shaw |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
River Raid |
| Bruce Shelley |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Created computer game Age of Empires |
| Tsutomu Shimomura |
Physicist |
23-Oct-1964 |
|
Helped catch Kevin Mitnick |
| Wil Shipley |
Computer Programmer |
16-Oct-1969 |
|
The Omni Group, Delicious Monster |
| Charles Simonyi |
Computer Programmer |
10-Sep-1948 |
|
Hungarian notation |
| Rich Skrenta |
Computer Programmer |
1967 |
|
First PC virus, Elk Cloner |
| Gene Spafford |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1957 |
|
Spaf |
| Mark Spencer |
Computer Programmer |
8-Apr-1977 |
|
Creator of Asterisk |
| Richard Stallman |
Computer Programmer |
16-Mar-1953 |
|
Founder, GNU software project |
| Bjarne Stroustrup |
Computer Programmer |
1950 |
|
Inventor of C++ programming language |
| Aaron Swartz |
Computer Programmer |
1986 |
|
Co-Inventor of RSS |
| Andrew Tanenbaum |
Computer Programmer |
16-Mar-1944 |
|
Creator of Minix |
| Brad Templeton |
Computer Programmer |
1960 |
|
Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation |
| Andrey Ternovskiy |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1992 |
|
Chatroulette |
| Ken Thompson |
Computer Programmer |
4-Feb-1943 |
|
Co-creator of UNIX |
| Peter Tippett |
Computer Programmer |
c. 1953 |
|
Antivirus software pioneer |
| Linus Torvalds |
Computer Programmer |
28-Dec-1969 |
|
Created the kernel for the GNU/Linux OS |
| Roy Trubshaw |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
MUD |
| Alan Turing |
Mathematician |
23-Jun-1912 |
7-Jun-1954 |
Computing pioneer |
| Guido van Rossum |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Created Python programming language |
| Wietse Venema |
Computer Programmer |
1951 |
|
SATAN, tcpwrappers, postfix |
| John Vlissides |
Computer Programmer |
2-Aug-1961 |
24-Nov-2005 |
Author number 4 of the Gang of Four |
| Larry Wall |
Computer Programmer |
27-Sep-1954 |
|
Creator of Perl programming language |
| Silas Warner |
Computer Programmer |
18-Aug-1949 |
26-Feb-2004 |
Castle Wolfenstein |
| John Warnock |
Computer Programmer |
6-Oct-1940 |
|
Co-Founder of Adobe |
| Joseph Weizenbaum |
Computer Programmer |
8-Jan-1923 |
5-Mar-2008 |
ELIZA |
| Bob Whitehead |
Computer Programmer |
? |
|
Chopper Command, Stampede |
| Dave Winer |
Computer Programmer |
2-May-1955 |
|
Co-Creator of RSS, Scripting News |
| Niklaus Wirth |
Computer Programmer |
15-Feb-1934 |
|
Inventor of Pascal, Modula-2 |
| Stephen Wolfram |
Mathematician |
29-Aug-1959 |
|
Creator of Mathematica |
| Steve Wozniak |
Computer Programmer |
11-Aug-1950 |
|
Co-Founder of Apple Computer |
| Will Wright |
Computer Programmer |
20-Jan-1960 |
|
Created SimCity, The Sims |
| Jamie Zawinski |
Computer Programmer |
3-Nov-1968 |
|
Netscape geek and SF club owner |
| Phil Zimmermann |
Computer Programmer |
12-Feb-1954 |
|
Creator of PGP |
| Mark Zuckerberg |
Business |
14-May-1984 |
|
Founder of Facebook |
| Konrad Zuse |
Engineer |
22-Jun-1910 |
18-Dec-1995 |
Built first Turing-complete computer |
