TITLE: No More Bugs
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 30, 2010  5:08 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes">
   Maurice Wilkes</A>,
one of computer science's pioneers,
<A HREF="http://www.techeye.net/business/sir-maurice-wilkes-dies">
   passed away yesterday</A>
at the grand age of 97.  Wilkes spent most of his career
working on computer systems, so I never studied his work
in the detail that I studied
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-03.html#e2007-03-21T16_35_15.htm">
   Backus</A>'s
or
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-07.html#e2004-07-19T10_52_37.htm">
   Floyd</A>'s.
He is perhaps best known as the creator of the EDSAC,
the first practical (if slow!) stored program computer,
in May 1949.  Wilkes also had an undeniable impact on
programming as the primary developer of the idea of
<EM>microprogramming</EM>, whereby the CPU is controlled
by a program stored in ROM.

Finally, every programmer must hold a special place in
his or her heart for this, Wilkes's most quoted aphorism:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
... the realization came over me that a good part of my
life was going to be spent finding errors in my own
programs.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

All programmers have their Wilkes Moment sooner or later.
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