Christopher Strachey and the Cambridge CPL Compiler

摘要

I first met Christopher in October 1963 more or less as soon as I started as a first-year research student in the Mathematical Laboratory (now renamed the Computer Laboratory) in Cambridge. Although in my first year I had David Barron as my supervisor and, later, David Park for my second and third years, I often feel that it was Christopher who most influenced the direction of my research. At that time EDSAC 2 was the computer that provided the entire computing service for Cambridge University. It was a much loved machine that ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But it was nearing the end of its useful working life and would soon be replaced by an even larger and much more powerful machine called Titan—a cut down version of the Ferranti Atlas that London University owned.