Adele J. Goldberg (born July 22, 1945) is an American computer scientist. She was a co-developer of the programming language Smalltalk-80, an early object-oriented programming language that influenced the design of languages such as Python, Objective-C, and Java, and developed many concepts related to object-oriented programming, while a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s.
Early life and education
Goldberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 22, 1945. Her family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, when she was 11, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She enjoyed problem solving and mathematics from a young age. In high school, she was in Student Council, but then realized this wasn't her area of interest. She was encouraged by her teachers to pursue mathematics. In 1967, she completed her studies and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. After graduating, she attended the University of Chicago, where she received her master's (1969) and PhD (1973) degrees in information science.
Career
1973
Goldberg began working at PARC in 1973 as a laboratory and research assistant, and eventually became manager of the System Concepts Laboratory where she, Alan Kay, and other researchers developed the programming language Smalltalk-80. At the time, it was not common for female computer scientists, nonetheless, Alan Kay, the leader of the design and development of first modern computer interface, hired a pregnant Adele Goldberg. This language developed the object-oriented approach of Simula 67 and introduced a programming environment of overlapping windows on graphic display screens. This new “personal computer,” with its key features including portability, network connection, communication with others, build models, and content sharing capabilities was the objective of Smalltalk at the time.
Smalltalk's innovative format was simple to use and customizable. Objects could be transferred among applications with minimal effort. Goldberg and Kay were involved in the development of design templates, forerunners of the design patterns later used in software design. Adele says that Smalltalk took inspiration from another language, which was created in the Sixties, Simula. Smalltalk 72, one of the iterations, was the first to feature low-level animations, and music. Adele and her team paired up with Doug Engelbart, the original inventor of the mouse, to see the possibilities of its incorporation to Smalltalk with the goal of better access, avoiding command lines with funny syntax. Smalltalk 72 was Adele's first opportunity to “teach” and explain this model to anyone.
1976
Along with Kay, she wrote the influential article "Personal Dynamic Media", which predicted a world in which ordinary individuals would use notebook computers to exchange, modify, and redistribute personal media. This paper outlined the vision for the Dynabook. She emphasized the vision of a small device, being able to be carried anywhere, that could give out information in quantities approaching that of human sensory systems, where the output had to be higher quality than newspapers. This paper outlined the vision for Dynabook.
1981
Adele was very passionate about Smalltalk, spending lots of time promoting her creation. In 1981, BYTE magazine featured Smalltalk, where she personally helped write and edit an article, with the goal of introducing and normalizing object-oriented programming as a necessity in today's developing and technologically dependent society.
1984
Many of the concepts developed by Goldberg and her team at PARC became the basis for graphical user interfaces. According to Goldberg, Steve Jobs demanded a demonstration of the Smalltalk System, which she at first refused to give him, although her superiors eventually compelled her to comply. Apple eventually took many of the ideas used in the Xerox Alto and their implementations and used them as the basis for their Apple Macintosh desktop environment.
1986
Between 1984 through 1986, Adele was President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Her previous roles included National Secretary and Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Computing Surveys, being awarded the 1987 ACM Software Systems Award along with her colleagues Ingalls and Kay for the development of Smalltalk.
1988
In 1988, Goldberg left PARC to cofound ParcPlace Systems, a company that created development tools for Smalltalk-based applications. Most of her work at PARC is the foundation for today's graphically based user interfaces, which replace earlier command line base systems. She continues to pursue her interest in education, formulating computer science courses at community colleges in the United States and abroad. She is a board member and adviser at Cognito Learning Media, a provider of multimedia software for science education. In 2010, she was admitted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Open University in 1998 and from the University of Michigan in 2014. In 2022, with Dan Ingalls, she was made a Fellow of the CHM for promoting and co-developing the Smalltalk programming environment and contributions advancing use of computers in education.
Selected publications
- (out of print; the blue book as known by Smalltalk people)
- (the orange book)
- (the purple book, a revision of the blue book)