University of Toronto (BASc) Princeton University (PhD)
Known for
Unix
AWK
A Mathematical Programming Language (AMPL)
Kernighan–Lin algorithm
Lin–Kernighan heuristic
The C Programming Language (book)[4]
Scientific career
Fields
Computer science
Institutions
Princeton University
Thesis
Some Graph Partitioning Problems Related to Program Segmentation(1969)
Doctoral advisor
Peter Weiner[1]
Website
www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/
Brian Wilson Kernighan (/ˈkɜːrnɪhæn/;[5][6] born January 30, 1942)[2] is a Canadian computer scientist.
He worked at Bell Labs and contributed to the development of Unix alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan's name became widely known through co-authorship of the first book on the C programming language (The C Programming Language) with Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan affirmed that he had no part in the design of the C language ("it's entirely Dennis Ritchie's work").[7]
Kernighan authored many Unix programs, including ditroff. He is coauthor of the AWK and AMPL programming languages. The "K" of K&R C and of AWK both stand for "Kernighan".
In collaboration with Shen Lin he devised well-known heuristics for two NP-complete optimization problems: graph partitioning and the travelling salesman problem. In a display of authorial equity, the former is usually called the Kernighan–Lin algorithm, while the latter is known as the Lin–Kernighan heuristic.
Kernighan has been a professor of computer science at Princeton University since 2000 and is the director of undergraduate studies in the department of computer science.[8][9][10] In 2015, he co-authored the book The Go Programming Language.
^Kernighan, Brian Wilson (1969). Some Graph Partitioning Problems Related to Program Segmentation (PhD thesis). Princeton University. OCLC 39166855. ProQuest 302450661. (subscription required)
^ abThe Library of Congress. "Kernighan, Brian W. - LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies | Library of Congress, from LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)". id.loc.gov. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^Lohr, Steve (31 October 2002). "To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science". The New York Times. Mr. Kernighan, 60, is a computer scientist
^"C" Programming Language: Brian Kernighan - Computerphile on YouTube
^Pike, Rob. "The History of Unix". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-11-23. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
^Nerd Talk - Doug McIlroy & Brian Kernighan, retrieved 2023-12-16
^Dolya, Aleksey (29 July 2003). "Interview with Brian Kernighan". Linux Journal.
^Brian Kernighan author profile page at the ACM Digital Library
^"An Oral History of Unix". 2007-06-11. Archived from the original on 2007-06-11. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
^"Brian Kernighan | Computer Science Department at Princeton University". www.cs.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
Brian Wilson Kernighan (/ˈkɜːrnɪhæn/; born January 30, 1942) is a Canadian computer scientist. He worked at Bell Labs and contributed to the development...
after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by BrianKernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented...
operating system from scratch, aided by Ritchie and others. In 1970, BrianKernighan suggested the name "Unix", a pun on the name "Multics". To supplement...
egrep), Peter Weinberger (who worked on tiny relational databases), and BrianKernighan. The acronym is pronounced the same as the name of the bird species...
The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie. The book had reused an example taken from a 1974 memo by BrianKernighan at Bell Laboratories. Aloha...
scheduling-type problems). It was developed by Robert Fourer, David Gay, and BrianKernighan at Bell Laboratories. AMPL supports dozens of solvers, both open source...
functionality. These concepts are collectively known as the "Unix philosophy". BrianKernighan and Rob Pike summarize this in The Unix Programming Environment as...
featuring Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, BrianKernighan, Alfred Aho, and more Video: VCF East 2019 -- BrianKernighan interviews Ken Thompson A History of...
inter-process communication, and some small utility programs. In 1970, BrianKernighan suggested the name "Unix", in a pun on the name "Multics". After initial...
List of Unix commands vgrep, or "visual grep" ngrep, the network grep Kernighan, Brian (1984). The Unix Programming Environment. Prentice Hall. pp. 102. ISBN 0-13-937681-X...
file names end in .r or .rat. Ratfor was designed and implemented by BrianKernighan at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1974, and described in Software—Practice...
the US patent for overlapping windows on a computer display. With BrianKernighan, he is the co-author of The Practice of Programming and The Unix Programming...
"bundle" program, known as "shar", a utility thoroughly detailed in BrianKernighan and Rob Pike's book The Unix Programming Environment. He left Sun Microsystems...
was designed and implemented by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and BrianKernighan of Bell Laboratories. Also in 1972, Marc Rochkind invented the Source...
method in this family is the Lin–Kernighan method (mentioned above as a misnomer for 2-opt). Shen Lin and BrianKernighan first published their method in...
of official government publication The C Programming Language, by BrianKernighan and Dennis Ritchie White Book of Rhydderch, manuscript of Welsh folklore...
The Daemon, The GNU and the Penguin - Ch. 6: 1979 (Peter H. Salus) Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, The C Programming Language, ISBN 0-13-110362-8...
became a priority. Ossanna died before this task was completed, so BrianKernighan took on the task of rewriting troff. The newly rewritten version produced...
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