David Wheeler (British computer scientist)

David John Wheeler
Born	9 February 1927[1] Birmingham, England
Died	13 December 2004 (aged 77)
Nationality	British
Fields	Computer Science
Institutions	University of Cambridge Computer Lab, Cambridge Darwin College, Cambridge
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Thesis	Automatic Computing With EDSAC (1951)
Doctoral advisor	Maurice Wilkes[2]
Doctoral students	Michael Burrows Andy Hopper Mathai Joseph Roger Needham Bjarne Stroustrup Kwok-Yan Lam
Known for	Burrows–Wheeler transform[3] Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA)[4] Wheeler Jump[5] WAKE (cipher) EDSAC[6]
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society (1981) Computer Pioneer Award (1985)

David John Wheeler FRS (9 February 1927 – 13 December 2004)^[7][8][9] was a computer scientist at the University of Cambridge.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Education

Wheeler was born in Birmingham and gained a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge to read the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, graduating in 1948.^[14] He completed the world's first PhD in computer science in 1951.^[15]

Career

Wheeler's contributions to the field included work on the EDSAC^[16] and the Burrows–Wheeler transform. Along with Maurice Wilkes and Stanley Gill he is credited with the invention of the subroutine (which they referred to as the closed subroutine), and gave the first explanation of how to design software libraries;^[5] as a result, the jump to subroutine instruction was often called a Wheeler Jump. He was responsible for the implementation of the CAP computer, the first to be based on security capabilities. In cryptography, he was the designer of WAKE and the co-designer of the TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms together with Roger Needham. In 1950, along with Maurice Wilks, he used the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator to solve a differential equation relating to gene frequencies in a paper by Ronald Fisher.^[17] This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field of biology.

Wheeler married Joyce Blackler in August 1957, who herself used EDSAC for her own mathematical investigations as a research student from 1955. He became a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge in 1964 and formally retired in 1994, although he continued to be an active member of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory until his death. In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2003, he was named a Computer History Museum Fellow Award recipient "for his invention of the closed subroutine, and for his architectural contributions to ILLIAC, the Cambridge Ring, and computer testing."^[18] The Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge annually holds the "Wheeler Lecture", a series of distinguished lectures named after him.^[19]

Quotes

Wheeler is often quoted as saying "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection, except of course for the problem of too many indirections."^[20] Another quotation attributed to him is "Compatibility means deliberately repeating other people's mistakes."

Another quote of him saying at the famous Cambridge Computer Lab Coffee Room - "Published Papers in the Shelves Collecting Dust" to Ph.D. students - signifying that research must have impact, and not about papers or number of publications.

References

1. Campbell-Kelly, Martin (2004). "Wheeler, David John (1927–2004)". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94633.
2. David Wheeler at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
3. Burrows, Michael; Wheeler, David J. (1994), A block sorting lossless data compression algorithm, Technical Report 124, Digital Equipment Corporation
4. Wheeler, D. J.; Needham, R. M. (1995). "TEA, a tiny encryption algorithm". Fast Software Encryption. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 1008. p. 363. doi:10.1007/3-540-60590-8_29. ISBN 978-3-540-60590-4.
5. Wheeler, D. J. (1952). "The use of sub-routines in programmes". Proceedings of the 1952 ACM national meeting (Pittsburgh) on - ACM '52. p. 235. doi:10.1145/609784.609816.
6. Wheeler, D. J. (1992). "The EDSAC programming systems". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 14 (4): 34–30. doi:10.1109/85.194053.
7. Campbell-Kelly, M. (2006). "David John Wheeler. 9 February 1927 -- 13 December 2004: Elected FRS 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 52: 437. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0030.
8. "Cambridge Computer Laboratory – Obituaries: David Wheeler, 1927–2004". Retrieved 2011-07-21.
9. "Professor David Wheeler - Obituaries, News - The Independent". London. 22 December 2004. Retrieved 2011-07-21.
10. List of publications from Microsoft Academic Search
11. Wheeler, D. J. (1994). "A bulk data encryption algorithm". Fast Software Encryption. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 809. pp. 127–134. doi:10.1007/3-540-58108-1_16. ISBN 978-3-540-58108-6.
12. Hopper; Wheeler (1979). "Binary Routing Networks". IEEE Transactions on Computers (10): 699. doi:10.1109/TC.1979.1675237.
13. Hopper, A.; Wheeler, D. (1979). "Maintenance of Ring Communication Systems". IEEE Transactions on Communications. 27 (4): 760. doi:10.1109/tcom.1979.1094451.
14. David J. Wheeler at DBLP Bibliography Server
15. The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer by Maurice Wilkes, David Wheeler, and Stanley Gill; (original 1951); reprinted with new introduction by Martin Campbell-Kelly; 198 pp.; illus; biblio; bios; index; ISBN 0-262-23118-2
16. Wilkes, M.V.; Renwick, W.; Wheeler, D.J. (1958). "The design of the control unit of an electronic digital computer". Proceedings of the IEE - Part B: Radio and Electronic Engineering 04. doi:10.1049/pi-b-1.1958.0267.
17. Gene Frequencies in a Cline Determined by Selection and Diffusion, R. A. Fisher, Biometrics, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1950), pp. 353–361
18. CHM. "David Wheeler — CHM Fellow Award Winner". Retrieved 30 March 2015.
19. "Computer Laboratory:Wheeler Lectures". Retrieved 15 October 2013.
20. Diomidis Spinellis. Another level of indirection. In Andy Oram; Wilson, Greg; Andrew Oram (2007). Beautiful code. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-51004-7.

External links

• Oral history interview with David Wheeler, 14 May 1987. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Wheeler was a research student at the University Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge from 1948–51, and a pioneer programmer on the EDSAC project. Wheeler discusses projects that were run on EDSAC, user-oriented programming methods, and the influence of EDSAC on the ILLIAC, the ORDVAC, and the IBM 701. Wheeler also notes visits by Douglas Hartree, Nelson Blackman (of ONR), Peter Naur, Aad van Wijngarden, Arthur van der Poel, Friedrich Bauer, and Louis Couffignal.
• Oral history interview with Gene H. Golub. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Golub discusses the construction of the ILLIAC computer, the work of Ralph Meager and David Wheeler on the ILLIAC design, British computer science, programming, and the early users of the ILLIAC at the University of Illinois.
• In 2003, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his invention of the closed subroutine, his architectural contributions to the ILLIAC, the Cambridge Ring, and computer testing."