Andrew S. Tanenbaum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. Andrew Stuart "Andy" Tanenbaum (sometimes called ast)[1] (born 1944) is a professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is best known as the author of Minix, a free Unix-like operating system for teaching purposes, and for his computer science textbooks, regarded as standard texts in the field. He regards his teaching job as his most important work.[2]
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[edit] Biography
Tanenbaum was born in New York City and grew up in suburban White Plains, New York. He received his bachelor's degree in Physics from MIT in 1965. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. He moved to the Netherlands to live with his (Dutch) wife, but he retains his United States citizenship. As of 2004 he teaches courses about Computer Organization and Operating Systems, and supervises the work of Ph.D. candidates.
He is well recognized for his textbooks on computer science, particularly:
- Computer Networks, ISBN 0-13-066102-3
- Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, ISBN 0-13-638677-6
- Modern Operating Systems, ISBN 0-13-031358-0
He also wrote:
- Structured Computer Organization, ISBN 0-13-148521-0
- Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, ISBN 0-13-088893-1
Operating Systems: Design and Implementation and Minix [1] were Linus Torvalds' inspiration for the Linux kernel. In his autobiography Just For Fun, Torvalds describes it as "the book that launched me to new heights". Tanenbaum went on to write the Amoeba distributed operating system, making full use of the microkernel idea.
[edit] electoral-vote.com
In 2004 Tanenbaum created electoral-vote.com, a popular web site analyzing opinion polls for the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, using them to project the outcome in the Electoral College. The site also provided an electoral map. Surprising results on this map (such as, for example, a short period when Hawaii, traditionally Democratic, was listed as "Barely Bush") would often surface in popular discussion. Through most of the campaign period he kept his identity secret, referring to himself as "the Votemaster" and acknowledging only that he personally preferred Kerry. Tanenbaum, a Democrat, revealed his identity on November 1, 2004, the day prior to the election, also stating his reasons and qualifications for running the website [2]. The site also covered the 2006 midterm elections and correctly predicted the winner of all 33 Senate races that year. It recently began tracking the Presidential, Senate, and House races in 2008.
[edit] Awards
- Fellow of the ACM
- Fellow of the IEEE
- Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Academy Professor
- Coauthor of the Best Paper Award at the USENIX LISA Conference in Dec. 2006
- Coauthor of the Best Paper for High Impact at the 2006 IEEE Percom conference
- Winner of the 2006 IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal
- Winner of the 2003 TAA McGuffey Award for classic textbooks
- Winner of the 2002 TAA Texty Award for new textbooks
- Winner of the 1997 ACM SIGCSE for contributions to computer science education
- Winner of the 1994 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award
- Coauthor of the 1984 ACM SOSP Distinguished Paper Award
[edit] Keynote Talks
Tanenbaum has been keynote speaker at numerous conferences, most recently
- linux.conf.au in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 17, 2007
- ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles, Brighton, England, Oct. 24, 2005
[edit] Ph.D. Students
Tanenbaum has had a number of Ph.D. students who themselves have gone on to become famous computer science researchers. These include Henri Bal, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Frans Kaashoek, a professor at MIT, Sape Mullender, a researcher at Bell Labs, Robbert van Renesse, a professor at Cornell University, and Leendert van Doorn, a fellow at the AMD Corporation.
[edit] Bibliography
- Books written by Andrew S. Tanenbaum published by Prentice Hall
- Academic publications by Andrew S. Tanenbaum from DBLP
[edit] References
- ^ A. S. Tanenbaum (1992-01-29). "LINUX is obsolete". comp.os.minix. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2006-11-27.
- ^ 2004 article about Linux, the Usenet debate, and the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
[edit] See also
- Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate — famous friendly debate between Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds regarding kernel design
- Turtle F2F - anonymous friend-to-friend P2P software
[edit] External link and reference
- Professor Andrew S Tanenbaum at the Dept. of Computer Systems at VU
- Minix Article in Free Software Magazine contains an interview with Andrew Tanenbaum
