Ken Thompson

Name: Kenneth Lane Thompson
Born: February 4, 1943, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Computer related contributions

With Dennis Ritchie was awarded the Japan Prize for Information and Communications in 2011.
Awarded the first Tsutomu Kanai Award in 1999.
Awarded National Medal of Technology on April 21, 1998 with Dennis Ritchie.
Received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1990.
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988.
Received the Turing Award in 1983.

"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."