David Turner (computer scientist)

David A. Turner (26 January 1946 – 19 October 2023) was a British computer scientist. He is best known for designing and implementing three programming languages, including the first for functional programming based on lazy evaluation, combinator graph reduction, and polymorphic types: SASL (1972), Kent Recursive Calculator (KRC) (1981), and the commercially supported Miranda (1985).

Turner's work on Miranda had a strong influence on the later Haskell. Turner first implemented SASL using the abstract SECD machine, but then reimplemented them in 1978 using SKI combinator calculus. This approach was used by Thomas Johnsson and Lennart Augustsson in the design of the g-machine that evolved to become the standard mechanism for lazy evaluation in call-by-need languages.

In 1981, Turner received the Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) from the University of Oxford, for his dissertation "Aspects of the Implementation of Programming Languages: The Compilation of an Applicative Language to Combinatory Logic", supervised by Christopher Strachey and Dana Scott. He held professorships at Queen Mary College, London, University of Texas at Austin and the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he spent most of his career and retained the title of Emeritus Professor of Computation.

Turner was involved with developing international standards in programming and informatics, as a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi, which specified, maintains, and supports the programming languages ALGOL 60 and ALGOL 68. He was also a member of the IFIP Working Group 2.8 on Functional Programming, which related to his creation of Miranda.

Turner was an emeritus professor at the University of Kent and Middlesex University in England.

Turner's parents were second-generation Jewish immigrants, and Turner himself was a strong advocate for equal rights for Palestinians. He was an executive member of ICAHD UK and frequently spoke on the topic. Turner died on 19 October 2023, at the age of 77. Provided by Wikipedia