List of programmers

A

• Michael Abrashprogram optimization and X86 assembly language
• Scott Adamsone of earliest developers of CP/M and DOS games
• Leonard Adlemanco-creator of RSA algorithm, coined the term computer virus
• Alfred Ahoco-creator of AWK, and main author of famous
• Andrei Alexandrescuauthor, expert C++, D languages
• Paul AllenAltair BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, co-founded Microsoft
• Eric Allmansendmail, syslog
• Marc Andreessenco-creator of Mosaic, co-founder of Netscape
• Jeremy Ashkenascreator of CoffeeScript programming language and Backbone.js
• Bill AtkinsonQuickDraw, HyperCard

  B

• Roland Carl Backhousecomputer program construction, algorithmic problem solving
• John BackusFortran, BNF
• Lars Bakvirtual machine specialist
• Richard BartleMUD, with Roy Trubshaw, creator of MUDs
• Friedrich L. Bauer – Stack, Sequential Formula Translation, ALGOL, software engineering, Bauer–Fike theorem
• Kent Beckcreated Extreme programming and co-creator of JUnit
• Donald BeckerLinux Ethernet drivers, Beowulf clustering
• Brian BehlendorfApache
• Doug BellDungeon Master series of video games
• Fabrice Bellardcreator of FFmpeg open codec library, QEMU virtualization tools
• Tim Berners-Leeinventor of World Wide Web
• Daniel J. Bernsteindjbdns, qmail
• Eric Binaco-creator of Mosaic web browser
• Marc Blankco-creator of Zork
• Joshua Blochcore Java language designer, lead the Java collections framework project
• Jonathan Blow video game designer and programmer of Braid and The Witness
• Susan G. Bondco-creator of ALGOL 68-R
• Grady Boochco-creator of Unified Modeling Language
• Bert Bosauthor of Argo web browser, co-author of Cascading Style Sheets
• Stephen R. Bournecreator of Bourne shell
• David Bradleycoder on the IBM PC project team who wrote the Control-Alt-Delete keyboard handler, embedded in all PC-compatible BIOSes
• Andrew Braybrookvideo games Paradroid and Uridium
• Larry Breedco-developer of APLð
• Jack Elton Bresenhamcreator of Bresenham's line algorithm
• Dan Bricklinco-creator of VisiCalc, the first personal spreadsheet program
• Walter BrightDigital Mars, First C++ compiler, author of D
• Sergey Brinco-founder of Google Inc.
• Richard BrodieMicrosoft Word
• Andries BrouwerHack, former maintainer of man pager, Linux kernel hacker
• Danielle Bunten Berry M.U.L.E., multiplayer video game and other noted video games
• Dries Buytaertcreator of Drupal

  C

• Steve Cappsco-creator of Macintosh and Newton
• John CarmackFirst-person shooters Doom, Quake
• Vint CerfTCP/IP, NCP
• Ward Christensenwrote the first BBS system CBBS
• Edgar F. Coddprincipal architect of relational model
• Bram CohenBitTorrent protocol design and implementation
• Alain ColmerauerProlog
• Alan CooperVisual Basic
• Mike CowlishawREXX and NetRexx, LEXX editor, image processing, decimal arithmetic packages
• Alan Coxco-developer of Linux kernel
• Brad CoxObjective-C
• Mark Crispincreator of IMAP, author of UW-IMAP, one of reference implementations of IMAP4
• William CrowtherColossal Cave Adventure
• Ward Cunninghamcreator of Wiki concept
• Dave Cutlerarchitect of VMS, Windows NT

  D

• Ole-Johan Dahlco-creator of SIMULA
• Ryan Dahlcreator of Node.js
• James Duncan Davidsoncreator of Tomcat, now part of Jakarta Project
• Jeff DeanSpanner, Bigtable, Map Reduce
• L. Peter DeutschGhostscript, Assembler for PDP-1, XDS-940 timesharing system, QED original co-author
• Edsger W. Dijkstracontributions to ALGOL, Dijkstra's algorithm, Goto Statement Considered Harmful
• Matt Dillonprogrammer of various software including DICE and DragonflyBSD
• Jack Dorseycreator of Twitter
• Martin Dougiamascreator and lead developer of Moodle
• Adam Dunkelsauthor of Contiki operating system, the lwIP and uIP embedded TCP/IP stacks, inventor of protothreads

  E

• Les Earnestauthor of finger program
• Brendan Eichcreator of JavaScript
• Larry Ellisonco-creator of Oracle database, co-founder of Oracle Corporation
• Marc Ewingcreator of Red Hat Linux

  F

• Scott Fahlman – creator of smiley face emoticon :-)
• Dan Farmercreator of COPS and Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks Security Scanners
• Steve Fawknercreator of Warlords and Puzzle Quest
• Stuart Feldmancreator of make, author of Fortran 77 compiler, part of original group that created Unix
• David Filoco-creator of Yahoo!
• Brad Fitzpatrickcreator of memcached, Livejournal and OpenID
• Andrew Fluegelmanauthor PC-Talk communications software; considered a co-creator of shareware
• Martin Fowlercreator of Dependency Injection pattern of software engineering, a form of Inversion of control
• Brian Foxcreator of Bash, Readline, GNU Finger

  G

• Elon Gasperco-founded Bright Star Technology, patented realistic facial movements for in-game speech; HyperAnimator, Alphabet Blocks, etc.
• Bill GatesAltair BASIC, co-founded Microsoft
• Jim GettysX Window System, HTTP/1.1, One Laptop per Child, Bufferbloat
• Steve Gibsoncreator of SpinRite
• John GilmoreGNU Debugger
• Adele Goldbergco-creator of Smalltalk
• Ryan C. Gordon Lokigames, ioquake3
• James GoslingJava, Gosling Emacs, NeWS
• Bill GosperMacsyma, Lisp machine, hashlife, helped Donald Knuth on Vol.2 of The Art of Computer Programming
• Andrew GowerRuneScape Classic, RuneScape, co-founded Jagex
• Paul GowerRuneScape Classic, RuneScape, co-founded Jagex
• Paul GrahamYahoo! Store, On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp
• John Graham-Cummingauthor of POPFile, a Bayesian filter-based e-mail classifier
• Ralph Griswoldco-creator of SNOBOL, creator of Icon
• Richard GreenblattLisp machine, Incompatible Timesharing System, MacHack
• Neil J. Gunther – author of PDQ performance modeling program
• Scott Guthrie ASP.NET creator
• Andi Gutmansco-creator of PHP programming language
• Michael Guy – Phoenix, work on number theory, computer algebra, higher dimension polyhedra theory; with John Horton Conway

  H

• Daniel Haco-founder and CEO of blog comment platform Disqus
• Jim Hallstarted the FreeDOS project
• Margaret HamiltonDirector of Software Engineering Division of MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the space Apollo program
• Eric Hehnerpredicative programming, formal methods, quote notation, ALGOL
• David Heinemeier Hanssoncreated the Ruby on Rails framework for developing web applications
• Rebecca Heinemanauthor of Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate and Dragon Wars
• Anders HejlsbergTurbo Pascal, Borland Delphi, C#, TypeScript
• Ted Henterfounder of Henter-Joyce creator of JAWS screen reader software for blind people
• Andy Hertzfeldco-creator of Macintosh, co-founder of General Magic, co-founder of Eazel
• D. Richard Hippcreator of SQLite
• C. A. R. Hoarefirst implementation of quicksort, ALGOL 60 compiler, Communicating sequential processes
• Grace HopperHarvard Mark I computer, FLOW-MATIC, COBOL
• David A. Huffmancreated the Huffman Code compression algorithm
• Dave Hyattco-author of Mozilla Firefox
• P. J. Hyettco-founder of GitHub

  I

• Miguel de IcazaGNOME project leader, initiator of Mono project
• Roberto IerusalimschyLua leading architect
• Dan Ingallsco-creator of Smalltalk and Bitblt
• Geir Ivarsøyco-creator of Opera web browser
• Ken IversonAPL, J
• Toru Iwatanicreator of Pac-Man

  J

• Bo JangeborgSinclair ZX Spectrum games
• Paul Jardetzkyauthor of server program for the first webcam
• Stephen C. Johnsonyacc
• Lynne Jolitz386BSD
• William Jolitz386BSD
• Bill JoyBSD, csh, vi, co-founder of Sun Microsystems
• Robert K. Jungcreator of ARJ

  K

• Poul-Henning KampMD5 password hash algorithm, FreeBSD GEOM and GBDE, part of UFS2, FreeBSD Jails, malloc and the Beerware license
• Mitch KaporLotus 1-2-3, founded Lotus Development Corporation
• Phil Katzcreator of Zip, author of PKZIP
• Ted Kaehlercontributions to Smalltalk, Squeak, HyperCard
• Alan KaySmalltalk, Dynabook, Object-oriented programming, Squeak
• Mel KayeLGP-30 and RPC-4000 machine code programmer at Royal McBee in the 1950s, famed as "Real Programmer" in the Story of Mel
• Stan Kelly-BootleManchester Mark 1, The Devil's DP Dictionary
• John Kemenyco-creator of BASIC
• Brian Kernighanco-creator of AWK, author of ditroff text-formatting tool
• Gary KildallCP/M, MP/M, BIOS, PL/M, also known for work on data-flow analysis, binary recompilers, multitasking operating systems, graphical user interfaces, disk caching, CD-ROM file system and data structures, early multi-media technologies, and for being the founder of Digital Research
• Tom KnightIncompatible Timesharing System
• Jim Knopfa.k.a. Jim Button, author PC-File flatfile database; considered a co-creator of shareware
• Donald E. KnuthTeX, CWEB, Metafont, The Art of Computer Programming, Concrete Mathematics
• Andrew R. Koenigco-author of books on C and C++ and former Project Editor of ISO/ANSI standards committee for C++
• Cornelis H. A. KosterReport on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 68,

  L

• Andre LaMothe – creator of XGameStation, one of world's first video game console development kits
• Leslie LamportLaTeX
• Butler LampsonQED original co-author
• Tom Laneprimary author of libjpeg, major developer of PostgreSQL
• Sam Lantingacreator of Simple DirectMedia Layer
• Dick Lathwellco-developer of APL\360
• Chris Lattnerprimary author of LLVM project
• Samuel J LefflerBSD, FlexFAX, libtiff, FreeBSD Wireless Device Drivers
• Rasmus Lerdorforiginal creator of PHP
• Michael LeskLex
• Gordon Letwinarchitect of OS/2, author of HPFS file system
• Håkon Wium Lieco-author of Cascading Style Sheets
• Robert LoveLinux kernel developer
• Ada Lovelacefirst programmer
• Al Lowecreator of Leisure Suit Larry series
• Hans Peter Luhnhash-coding, linked list, searching and sorting binary tree

  M

• Khaled Mardam-Beycreator of mIRC
• Robert C. Martinauthor of Clean Code, The Clean Coder, signatory on the Agile Manifesto, and leader of Clean Code movement
• John Mashey – author of PWB shell, also called Mashey shell
• Yukihiro MatsumotoRuby
• John McCarthyLisp, ALGOL
• Craig McClanahanoriginal author of Jakarta Struts, architect of Tomcat Catalina servlet container
• Daniel D. McCrackenprofessor at City College and author of Guide to Algol Programming, Guide to Cobol Programming, Guide to Fortran Programming
• Scott A. McGregor – architect and development team lead of Microsoft Windows 1.0, co-author of X Window System version 11, and developer of Cedar Viewers Windows System at Xerox PARC
• Douglas McIlroymacros, pipes and filters, concept of software componentry, Unix tools
• Marshall Kirk McKusickBSD, work on FFS, implementor of soft updates
• Sid Meierauthor, Civilization and Railroad Tycoon, co-founded Microprose
• Bertrand MeyerEiffel, Object-oriented Software Construction, design by contract
• Bob Minerco-creator of Oracle database, co-founder of Oracle Corporation
• Jeff Minterpsychedelic, and often llama-related video games
• Petr Mitrichevcompetitive programmer
• Cleve Moler co-author of LINPACK, EISPACK and MATLAB
• Lou Montullicreator of Lynx browser, cookies, the blink tag, server push and client pull, HTTP proxying, HTTP over SSL, browser integration with animated GIFs, founding member of HTML working group at W3C
• Bram Moolenaarauthor of text-editor Vim
• David A. MoonMaclisp, ZetaLisp
• Charles H. Moorecreator of Forth language
• Roger Mooreco-developer of APL\360, creator of IPSANET, co-founder of I.P. Sharp Associates
• Matt Mullenwegauthor of WordPress
• Boyd Munro – Australian developer of GRASP, owner of SDI, one of earliest software development companies
• Mike Muussauthor of ping, network tool to detect hosts

  N

• Patrick Naughtonearly Java designer, HotJava
• Peter NaurBackus-Naur form, ALGOL 60
• Fredrik Neijco-creator of The Pirate Bay
• Graham Nelsoncreator of Inform authoring system for interactive fiction
• Klara Dan von Neumannprincipal programmer for the MANIAC I
• Maurice Nivattheoretical computer science, Theoretical Computer Science journal, ALGOL
• Phiwa NkambuleCo-founder of Riovic, founder of Cybatar
• Peter Nortonprogrammer of Norton Utilities
• Kristen NygaardSIMULA

  O

• Ed Oatesco-creator of Oracle database, co-founder of Oracle Corporation
• Martin OderskyScala
• Jarkko Oikarinencreator of Internet Relay Chat
• Andrew and Philip Oliver, the Oliver Twinsmany Sinclair ZX Spectrum games including Dizzy
• John Ousterhoutcreator of Tcl/Tk

  P

• Keith PackardX Window System
• Larry Pageco-founder of Google, Inc.
• Alexey Pajitnovcreator of game Tetris on Electronica 60
• Seymour PapertLogo
• Tim Patersonauthor of 86-DOS
• Markus Perssoncreator of Minecraft
• Jeffrey Petersonkey free and open source software architect, creator of Quepasa
• Charles Petzoldauthor of many Microsoft Windows programming books
• Rob Pikewrote first bitmapped window system for Unix, co-creator of UTF-8 character encoding, author of text editor sam and programming environment acme, main author of Plan 9 and Inferno operating systems, and co-author of Go programming language
• Kent Pitmantechnical contributor to the ANSI Common Lisp standard
• Tom Preston-Wernerco-founder of GitHub

  Q

R

• Theo de Raadtfounding member of NetBSD, founder of OpenBSD and OpenSSH
• Jef Raskinstarted the Macintosh project in Apple Computer, designed Canon Cat computer, developed Archy program
• Eric RaymondOpen Source movement, author of fetchmail
• Hans Reisercreator of ReiserFS file system
• John Resigcreator and lead developer of jQuery JavaScript library
• Craig Reynoldscreator of boids computer graphics simulation
• Dennis RitchieC, Unix, Plan 9 from Bell Labs, Inferno
• Ron Rivestco-creator of RSA algorithm. Creator of RC4 and MD5
• John Romerofirst person shooters Doom, Quake
• Blake Rossco-author of Mozilla Firefox
• Guido van RossumPython
• Jeff Rulifsonlead programmer on the NLS project
• Rusty Russellcreator of iptables for linux
• Steve Russellfirst Lisp interpreter; original Spacewar! graphic video game
• Mark RussinovichSysinternals.com, Filemon, Regmon, Process Explorer, TCPView and RootkitRevealer

  S

• Bob SabistonRotoshop, interpolating rotoscope animation software
• Muni SakyaNepalese software
• Carl SassenrathAmiga, REBOL
• Chris Sawyerdeveloper of RollerCoaster Tycoon and the Transport Tycoon series
• Bob ScheiflerX Window System, Jini
• Isai ScheinbergIBM engineer, Founder of PokerStars
• Bill SchelterGNU Maxima, GNU Common Lisp
• John ScholesDirect functions
• Randal L. SchwartzJust another Perl hacker
• Adi Shamirco-creator of RSA algorithm
• Mike Shaverfounding member of Mozilla Organization
• Cliff ShawIPL, the first AI language
• Zed Shawwrote the Mongrel Web Server, for Ruby web applications
• Emily Shortprolific writer of Interactive fiction and co-developer of Inform version 7
• Jacek Siekadeveloper of DC++ an open-source, peer-to-peer file-sharing client
• Ken Silvermancreator of Duke Nukem 3Ds graphics engine
• Charles SimonyiHungarian notation, Bravo, Microsoft Word
• Colin Simpsondeveloper of CircuitLogix simulation software
• Rich Skrentaco-founder of DMOZ
• Matthew SmithSinclair ZX Spectrum games, including Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy''
• Henry SpencerC News, Regex
• Joel Spolskyco-founder of Fog Creek Software and Stack Overflow
• Quentin Stafford-Fraserauthor of original VNC viewer, first Windows VNC server, client program for the first webcam
• Richard StallmanEmacs, GCC, GDB, founder and pioneer of GNU Project, terminal-independent I/O pioneer on ITS, Lisp machine manual
• Guy L. Steele Jr.Common Lisp, Scheme, Java
• Alexander Stepanovcreator of Standard Template Library
• Christopher Strachey – draughts playing program
• Ludvig Strigeuscreator of uTorrent, OpenTTD, ScummVM and the technology behind Spotify
• Bjarne Stroustrupcreator of C++
• Zeev Suraskico-creator of PHP language
• Gerald Jay SussmanScheme
• Herb Sutterchair of ISO C++ standards committee and C++ expert
• Gottfrid Svartholmco-creator of The Pirate Bay
• Aaron Swartzsoftware developer, writer, Internet activist
• Tim SweeneyThe Unreal engine, UnrealScript, ZZT

  T

• Amir Taaki – Leading developer for the Bitcoin project
• Andrew TanenbaumMinix
• Audrey "Autrijus" Tangdesigner of Pugs
• Simon TathamNASM, PuTTY
• Larry Teslerthe Smalltalk code browser, debugger and object inspector, and the Gypsy word processor
• Jon Stephenson von Tetzchnerco-creator of Opera web browser
• Avie Tevanianauthor of Mach kernel
• Ken Thompsonmain designer and author of Unix, Plan 9 and Inferno operating systems, B and Bon languages, creator of UTF-8 character encoding, introduced regular expressions in QED and co-author of Go programming language
• Michael TiemannG++, GCC
• Linus Torvaldsoriginal author and current maintainer of Linux kernel and creator of Git, a source code management system
• Andrew TridgellSamba, Rsync
• Roy TrubshawMUDtogether with Richard Bartle, creator of MUDs
• Bob Truelco-founder of DMOZ
• Alan Turingmathematician, computer scientist and cryptanalyst

  U

V

• Wietse VenemaPostfix, Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks, TCP Wrapper
• Pat Villanioriginal author of FreeDOS/DOS-C kernel, maintainer of a defunct "Linux for Windows 9x" distribution
• Paul VixieBIND, Cron
• Patrick Volkerdingoriginal author and current maintainer of Slackware Linux Distribution

  W

• John Walkerco-founder of Autodesk
• Larry WallWarp, rn, patch, Perl
• Bob Wallaceauthor PC-Write word processor; considered a co-creator of shareware
• Chris Wanstrathco-founder of GitHub
• John Warnockcreator of PostScript
• Robert WatsonFreeBSD network stack parallelism, TrustedBSD project and OpenBSM
• Pei-Yuan Weiauthor of ViolaWWW, one of earliest graphical browsers
• Peter J. Weinbergerco-creator of AWK
• Jim Weirichcreator of Rake, Builder, and Ruby Gems for Ruby; popular teacher and conference speaker
• Joseph Weizenbaumcreator of ELIZA
• David Wheelerco-creator of subroutine; designer of WAKE; co-designer of Tiny Encryption Algorithm, XTEA, Burrows–Wheeler transform
• Arthur WhitneyA+, K
• why the lucky stiffcreator of libraries and writing for Ruby, as well as a quirky and popular guide to learning programming
• Bruce Wilcoxcreator of Computer Go, programmed NEMESIS Go Master
• Evan Williams – creator and co-founder of Logo programming language
• Roberta and Ken WilliamsSierra Entertainment, King's Quest, graphic adventure game
• Sophie Wilsondesigner of instruction set for Acorn RISC Machine, author of BBC BASIC
• Dave Winerdeveloped XML-RPC, Frontier scripting language
• Niklaus WirthPascal, Modula-2, Oberon
• Stephen Wolframcreator of Mathematica
• Don WoodsINTERCAL, Colossal Cave Adventure
• Steve WozniakBreakout, Apple Integer BASIC, co-founder of Apple Inc.
• Will Wrightcreated the Sim City series and co-founded Maxis

  Y

• Jerry Yangco-creator of Yahoo!
• Victor Yngveauthor of first string processing language, COMIT

  Z

• Matei Zahariacreator of Apache Spark
• Jamie ZawinskiLucid Emacs, Netscape, Mozilla, XScreenSaver
• Phil Zimmermanncreator of encryption software PGP, the ZRTP protocol, and Zfone
• Mark Zuckerbergcreator of Facebook