The most powerful programmers in the world. Why Russian programmers are the strongest (6 photos). Which country represents the best developers in specific areas?
According to HackerRank, a platform with a one and a half million audience where programmers compete to solve problems, at the end of 2017 Russia took second place after China in the ranking of the strongest programmers and maintains the absolute leadership in the field of algorithm development. But the most impressive results are shown by Russian students, who smash everyone to smithereens at international Olympiads and championships.
Since 2000, Russia has won 32 gold medals at the ICPC International Collegiate Sports Programming Championship, leaving China far behind with 13 medals and the United States with six.
What makes Russian IT specialists in demand and successful?
"LITMO-1" (1958) was the first universal electronic digital machine for engineering calculations, containing 850 vacuum tubes, performed 100 operations per second and had 2048 bytes of memory.
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Continuity
From the Soviet Union, modern Russia inherited a strong mathematical school. Soviet scientists made revolutionary breakthroughs in technical and natural science fields - just remember the names of Pyotr Kapitsa, Igor Kurchatov, Lev Landau.
After the collapse of the USSR in the nineties, IT specialists used in great demand. Programming was almost the only professional field in which one could make money. For a well-versed mathematician, learning programming is easy because computer science is the practical application of mathematics. Therefore, computer science in Russia, although belatedly, has also become a developed field of science and practice.
Smart kids from school
Russian schoolchildren, already in elementary school, solve many problems in which they need to keep several steps in mind at once. Our students are also given a head start by the ban on using a calculator in lessons and competitions. In France and the USA, simplifying your calculations is allowed from the third grade.
In addition, our schoolchildren begin to operate with abstract concepts quite early. For example, our polynomials already pass through high school. Numbers are an imaginable concept, but (a+b)2 is much more difficult to comprehend. This requires abstract thinking skills.
Russia also has a well-developed system of special schools, lyceums with a physics and mathematics focus, and divisions into specializations in high school. The Olympics help to select and send talented children to the best universities in the country right from school. Going through the stages of the All-Russian School Olympiad, students train on difficult tasks and gain experience of competing with the best of the best. As a result - already at school stage Russian students show outstanding results at the International Olympiads in Informatics and Physics.
Anyone who is interested in sports programming is well aware of the name of Gennady Korotkevich. He is the most awarded Olympiad programmer in the world and ranks first in the ranking of coders on the Codeforces platform. At first, Korotkevich was the youngest absolute winner of the international school Olympiad in Informatics IOI from Belarus, and later he entered a Russian university and in 2013 and 2015 at the ICPC Student Programming World Championship as part of the ITMO University team, he won absolute gold. Korotkevich also won Yandex.Algorithm, VK Cup, Google Code Cup and many other competitions many times.
ITMO University students are six-time absolute world champions in programming 2015/Photo Wikipedia
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Universities
Universities make a great contribution to the training of the strongest IT personnel in Russia: MIPT, St. Petersburg State University, ITMO University, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, Saratov State University, Ural Federal University. Universities hold programming competitions. In Moscow, the MIPT Center for the Development of IT Education conducts International festival MosCode Festival. The Urals Championship in sports programming is held annually; regular competitions are held in St. Petersburg, as well as in small towns like Kovrov.
In Russia and the countries of the former USSR, since the early 2000s, regular training competitions have been held: training camps in Petrozavodsk, the Open Cup named after E.V. Pankratiev in programming. And since 2012, first on the MIPT campus, and now in Vladivostok, Grodno, Barcelona and Kollam (India), Moscow Workshops ICPC camps began to take place, where student teams come from all over the world to prepare for the Olympic Games in ICPC programming. To date, 167 universities from 50 countries have already taken part in them. The results of training at bootcamps are impressive - 10 of the 13 winners of the final ICPC 2018 championship were trained at Moscow Workshops ICPC. Local history Russian bootcamps have grown into global network and has no analogues of similar scale in other countries.
The basic programs here and abroad are generally similar, but the level of the students is also important. In many of our universities the selection process is so strict that groups that are unique in their level gather there. For example, at MIPT the passing score on the Unified State Exam has been 94 for many years, which, along with MGIMO, makes it the most difficult university to enter in Russia. Students who pass the selection receive an in-depth education and work hard in teams. The ability to work in a team, well developed by physical and technical students, is an important skill in business. Now leading universities in Russia, including, for example, the National Research University Higher School of Economics and ITMO University, are actively developing the entrepreneurial competencies of students. MIPT is moving towards technological entrepreneurship, and many students continue to work after studying in the teams that formed during their studies. This is important because at the stage of searching for investors, some of the key issues- this is “who is your team” and “how does interaction occur within it.”
A striking example is the company Looksery Inc, founded by Viktor Shaburov, whose team has developed a popular application that adds masks to people’s faces in video mode. The core of the company was the members of one Olympiad programming team. Just three years after its creation, in 2015, they sold it to Snapchat for $150 million. Shaburov now actively supports training programs for schoolchildren and students. He recently founded the Botan Investments Foundation and opened a grant program for teachers in the field machine learning.
The Moscow company that develops trading algorithms, AIM Tech, founded by Ilya Sedoshkin, also employs World Finals ICPC medalists from MIPT: Renat Gimadeev, Alexander Ostanin, Konstantin Semenov and others. This is an area where speed of transactions is valued. And speed and algorithms are something that is especially well developed in sports programming.
Technological entrepreneurship has also affected banks, which are now increasingly turning into IT companies. For example, the iPavlov project, based on machine learning technologies, is developing an automatic chat for Sberbank of Russia.
IT corporations and their wards
The coordinated work of universities and support from IT companies have formed a programming culture in our country. Business, together with universities, organizes training programs, thereby introducing new competencies and business process models that universities implement in educational activities. Among the companies supporting IT education in the country: Yandex, JetBrains, Mail.Ru Group, 1C, Tinkoff Bank, Sberbank and others.
For example, the JetBrains company is developing a bachelor's program at the Department of Mathematical and Information Technologies at St. Petersburg Autonomous University, and also, together with the Acronis company, a master's program at MIPT. Mail.Ru Group organized five educational programs via web and mobile development, artificial intelligence and high-load projects: Technopark with MSTU. N. E. Bauman, “Technosphere” with the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University. Lomonosov, "Technotrek" with MIPT, "Technopolis" with SPbPU and "Technoatom" with MEPhI.
Yandex has created many educational programs, for example, the “School of Data Analysis” for senior students and graduates of technical specialties. Yandex has also established a scholarship for Olympiad students who are studying in the first year of the faculty computer science National Research University Higher School of Economics.
Companies draw personnel from the student environment. The development of VKontakte is very close to the Olympiad approach to problem solving, because its creators have been in this system since school. For example, the software development of the social network “VKontakte” was carried out by Nikolai Durov, a two-time winner of the ICPC World Programming Championship from St. Petersburg State University, and his teammate Andrei Lopatin, a coach of the Moscow Workshops ICPC, who coached the victorious teams of St. Petersburg State University. And now ICPC champions Dmitry Egorov and Pavel Kunyavsky work on VKontakte.
Companies abroad also help students, but we are distinguished by those who work, effective programs. Yandex has created a relatively easy-to-use platform, Yandex.Contest, where programming competitions are held. There, university teachers can upload their assignments themselves. The verification is automated, which means it is unbiased, and this helps regional universities integrate into the system of training leading programmers.
Working capacity of Russians
Champions of international competitions are guys who have worked very hard since school. For example, in the MIPT team, one of the participants had a medal from the International school Olympiad in computer science. Another, for six years at the university, in addition to studying, devoted several hours a day to training, went to countless championships and training camps.
At the competitions themselves, students overcome great psychological stress. Difficult tasks, tight deadlines and strong opponents are not so bad. At the ICPC Championship, for example, the guys are under a microscope: they are constantly being filmed by cameras, the screen with the code is broadcast on the Internet. Those who can withstand the load already feel much more confident in stressful situations at work.
Liberty
The IT industry in Russia and the world is largely developing independently, according to the principle “The most efficient survives.” It makes no difference where you are from if your algorithms speed up processes and make the system work faster and cheaper. Therefore, programming is something in which a person can succeed both in Russia and abroad. Russian programmers, contrary to popular belief, do not always want to emigrate. Rather, they are looking for interesting tasks for themselves, of which there are many now in Yandex, VKontakte and in startups.
Teachers
There is a large shortage of personnel in the IT sector in Russia and the world. Therefore, no matter what country or region you take, average salary IT specialists will be higher than in other industries. According to HeadHunter, the average salary in the IT sector in Russia is 88,246 rubles, while the Russian average is 45,640 rubles. In the USA, according to Glassdoor, the average salary of an IT specialist in rubles is approximately 330,000 per month. In the UK, a programmer's salary is 31,901 pounds sterling per year (about 220,000 rubles per month). In Switzerland, according to SwissInfo, programmers earn an average of 4,608 Swiss francs (about 230,000 rubles per month). But when working with statistics, you need to understand that the price level in other countries also varies significantly, and the amount is affected by the exchange rate of the ruble against other currencies. Also, in many foreign countries, the level of taxes greatly reduces the real salary that the employee actually receives.
High salaries in the IT field are not the whole picture. Programmers from leading universities are snapped up immediately after graduation and even earlier - companies are trying to ensure the loyalty of future specialists from school. And this trend is not only in Russia. There is a shortage of qualified programmers in Silicon Valley. Month-long programming courses for community college graduates have become popular in California because students are unable to write code on their own after graduation.
It would seem that we just need to train more graduates, but should someone do this? And salaries in education are lower than in companies. It is in the IT industry that there is a big gap, which causes an outflow of quality teachers. It turns out that there is no one to prepare the next generation. Therefore, programming culture again plays a big role in getting people involved and remaining in the profession. In Europe and the USA it is not so developed, but we managed to involve a sufficient number of people in this system. In order for successes in the IT field to continue, it is necessary to increase the prestige of IT education and popularize this type of activity.
Seeing your name in the Forbes ranking is the dream of any successful person. Only now everyone chooses their own path to this goal. Some start investing, some find themselves selling precious metals, and some even create products without which half of the world’s population cannot imagine their lives. There are many options. But now I propose to touch on one of the most promising areas, namely, to talk about the 10 richest people who made their fortune with the help of information technology.
10th place. Michael Dell
Net worth: $19 billion.
Life is a cruel thing, so not all our dreams are destined to come true. At the age of 17, the then unknown Michael Dell wanted to become a doctor, but after just two years he had to quit his studies. Do you think everyone gave up on the guy from Texas at this point? Maybe. But already in 2005, his name was on the fourth line of the ranking of the richest people in the United States according to Forbes. The reason for this success can be safely attributed to the company PC Limited, which Michael founded in 1984 immediately after leaving university. Initially, the company sold only computers, but after 19 years (in 2003), the list of manufactured goods increased significantly, so it was decided to rename the business Dell Inc. At that time, the company's net income was already $3 billion a year. Now Michael Dell serves as chairman of the board of directors, acts as chief executive officer, enjoys the success of his four children and donates money to charity.
9th place. Laurene Powell Jobs
Net worth: $19.5 billion.
There is an opinion that a man must find the right goal in life, and a woman must find a man with the right goal. Lauren met such a man at the age of 26, it was Steve Jobs. ninth line in this list Powell really owes her husband, because she inherited shares of Disney and Apple. But no one would dare say that “wealth” fell on this woman’s head just like that. We all know that behind every successful man there is always a loving woman. And looking at the achievements of Steve Jobs, you understand that Lauren managed to support home comfort and inspire your husband to conquer new heights. And Powell also has plenty of reasons to be proud of her own. Lauren is on the board of directors of seven charities (two of which she founded herself), her main goal is to help children from poor families get an education. In 2010, Barack Obama personally included Laurene Powell Jobs on a special committee at the White House, which is designed to solve the most pressing public problems.
8th place. Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $21.5 billion.
Steve Ballmer, incumbent general director Over the course of 14 years (from 2000 to 2014), Microsoft can easily be considered the most controversial personality in our top ten. During his time at the helm of Microsoft, he managed to increase the corporation's annual revenue from $25 billion to $70 billion, but neglect of emerging markets contributed to the fact that in 2012 Steve was recognized as “the worst CEO of a public American company.” But this did not prevent him from entering the list of the richest people on the planet who are not owners of large businesses or their relatives. Ballmer managed to amass his enormous fortune thanks to options received from Microsoft. Well, in order not to fall into depression after leaving the company to which he devoted the best years of his life, Ballmer decided to “fill out” his grief in a very unusual way - to buy the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion.
7th place. Jack Ma
Net worth: $22.7 billion.
At some point, you may be struck by the idea that the world of IT rich consists only of residents of America. But this is far from true. The Celestial Empire also has its own geniuses. It’s unlikely that Jack Ma and his partners could have imagined that the Alibaba B2B platform they created in 1999 for $60,000 would in a few years turn into a company with a capitalization of $270 billion and generate 2% of China’s GDP. But before Ma Yun's dreams (this is our hero's middle name) turned into reality, he had to go through a difficult childhood, five years of work at the Hangzhou Normal Institute for $12 a month and hundreds of refusals when trying to get any work (his They didn’t even accept it at KFC). The first signs of changes in life appeared when in 1995, while visiting Seattle, Jack Ma first became acquainted with the Internet. The World Wide Web influenced his views so much that just a few months later the future billionaire created a small website development company. A little later, having returned home and having worked for a year as the head of the Chinese Electronic Commerce Center, he founded “that fabulous company”, which greatly frayed the nerves of eBay management (the Americans had to close their representative office in China altogether due to lost competition). In 2013, Ma Yun resigned as president of the company, but remained on the board of directors. And just ten months after that, Alibaba went public, raising a record amount of investment - $25 billion. The Asian corporation has very global plans for the near future (for example, creating the first private bank in China), and believe me, Jack Ma and his colleagues will do everything possible to achieve their goal.
6th place. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $29.2 billion.
The sixth place on our list went to an American, but this time with Russian roots. The family of Sergey Brin, the same co-founder of Google, emigrated to the States from Moscow when the boy was five years old. A few months before he came of age, Sergei returned to his homeland with a group of students, but this trip did not evoke positive emotions in him. “Thank you for taking us all out of Russia,” Brin said to his father a little later. Already while studying at Stanford University, Sergei began to actively study various search engines, and even wrote several studies on this topic. The acquaintance with Larry Page also took place within the walls of this institution. In 1995, a master's degree student and a mathematics graduate student studied search engines together, and three years later they announced the creation of Google. The business almost immediately began to bear fruit, and already in 2004, Sergey Brin first appeared on the Forbes list with a fortune of $4 billion. At the moment, he holds the post of president of technological developments in his own company, has two children (he and his wife separated in 2013) and actively, like any other person in this top ten, donates money to good causes.
5th place. Larry Page
Net worth: $29.7 billion.
Larry Page was ahead of his friend and colleague, Sergey Brin, by several million dollars. The future co-founder of Google was born into a family that taught computer science at the University of Michigan, so even from childhood the future billionaire showed interest in high technology. It’s unlikely that a guy from a small (by American standards) town could then think that his favorite business would help him rise to 19th place in Forbes, but the meeting of his life at Stanford University with Sergei Brin gave him hope for success. The phenomenal achievements of Google allowed the tandem of creators to even buy a Boeing 767 passenger plane for $320 million. In 2011, Page took over as chief executive director, replacing Eric Schmidt, who has held this position for ten years. As of May 2015, the corporation's hierarchy remained as such: Larry deals with management issues, and Sergei is responsible for technological developments.
4th place. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $33.4 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg - founder of the social Facebook networks, Time magazine's Person of the Year 2010, a philanthropist for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, and one of Forbes' youngest billionaires. This list can be continued indefinitely, because Mark is an excellent example of the fact that you can achieve anything in this life, the main thing is to show perseverance. Zuckerberg earned his first billion at the age of 23, just 10 months after Facebook opened to all Internet users (at first the site was available only to students with by email in the domain zone .edu). Many films have been made about the life of Zuckerberg and the development of his company, but most of all viewers were interested in Aaron Sorkin’s film “The Social Network”, filmed in 2010. It’s worth watching this creation, if only because the culprit himself approved the script, although at that time the film had already been in theaters for a year. The director not only told the story of the site’s creation well, but was also able to show Zuckerberg’s far from easy character. All of Mark’s loved ones will confirm that this guy is not easy to communicate with, but his strong life principles helped found one of the most valuable brands of our time (last year Facebook took 29th position in the Best Global Brands ranking), and also contributed to his marriage to Priscilla Chan (Priscilla Chan). Zuckerberg currently serves as CEO of Facebook and also owns 19% of the company's shares.
3rd place. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $34.8 billion.
The bronze award for third place on our list goes to another American who, in 1994, realized that the Internet was an ideal platform for selling goods. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, was a pioneer in online bookselling, so the formula successful business on the Web, he had to develop it himself. At first, Bezos even forced his employees to walk outside other stores with signs that read, “Can't find the book you're looking for? Check out Amazon.com." But the company had orders from the first day of work, but Netscape and Yahoo helped to reach the mark of “100 books sold in an hour” just a year after opening, which placed a link to Jeff’s website on their main pages. In 1998, after the IPO, it was decided to expand the store’s assortment by adding virtual shelves music CDs and video production. Currently, Amazon.com sells 34 types of goods (household appliances, food, software And much more). As for Jeff Bezos himself, the post of chief executive is not the only joy in his life. In 2000, the billionaire acquired by Blue Origin, which specializes in launching private spacecraft, and in 2010 added The Washington Post publishing house to its assets, acquired for $250 million.
2nd place. Larry Ellison
Net worth: $54.3 billion.
Fate began to test Larry Ellison, the future founder of Oracle, from early childhood. His own mother abandoned him when he was not even a year old, and his adoptive parents considered the boy a failure due to problems with his studies. After graduating from school, Ellison could not find his calling in life for a long time, so the future billionaire had to be content with small part-time jobs. But everything changed as soon as Larry learned about the existence of computers. He immediately began studying programming and a few years later moved to California to write custom software. In 1974, fate brought Ellison to small company Amtex. It was here that our main character created the “ideal database” Oracle, which served as the foundation for opening his own business. “The program was too good to just be sold,” said Larry. As a result, Oracle became one of the fastest growing companies in America and already in 1986 brought in $584 million. But after just four years, the corporation found itself on the verge of bankruptcy: the market value had dropped by 80 percent, and the number of lawsuits had gone beyond all reasonable limits. Ellison had to rethink his approach to accounting, fire old managers and make every effort to improve the software he sold. In 1991, Oracle began to turn a profit again. Larry always wanted to become rich, and he succeeded - already in 2000, his fortune was estimated at $48 billion. But he has not yet succeeded in achieving success on the personal front (all four marriages ended in divorce). But it is unlikely that Larry Ellson, who ranks fifth in the Forbes ranking, is very worried about this. And he still has two children from his third wife, Barbara Booth.
1 place. Bill Gates
Net worth: $79.2 billion.
The laurels of the winner on our list went to Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who earns $6,700 per minute. He first became the richest person on the planet in 1996, and it is noteworthy that the situation has not changed since then. Only in 2008, Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim Al managed to move Bill to third place, but within 12 months his name again appeared in the leading position of the Forbes world ranking. But the computer corporation is not the only achievement in Gates’ life. In 1994, he and his wife Melinda founded a charitable foundation that is now the largest in the world, with approximately $35 billion under its control. William Henry Gates is often considered a billionaire without a higher education, but in 2007 Bill still received a diploma Harvard University, who quit in 1975 during his sophomore year to devote himself full-time to programming. Now the first number of Forbes holds the post of chairman of the board of directors of Microsoft, but every year he devotes more and more time to the development of his fund, the main goal of which is to combat global world problems.
All data on the financial status of billionaires was taken from the official Forbes ranking, current as of May 2015.
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You used something 100% and didn’t even know that “ours” did it.
The idea for this article was given to me by a reader in his comment. Svergssen, thank you very much for your support, but your words about Russian developers are very offensive:
It’s not surprising that even in Russia they haven’t heard of Russian developers
Peper- I gave him a couple of examples in response:
Yandex with all its services, a bunch of excellent mobile banks, Cut the Rope, Lost Socks, Punch Club...
The others remained silent. Perhaps some of the readers do not imagine how many truly important and in demand products in different countries of the world are made by Russian specialists. This material will tell you about their most significant achievements and will raise your patriotic feelings to a new level.
1. Nginx
The first version of this web server was developed by Igor Sysoev (born in 1970, Baumanka graduate) in 2002-2004. Currently working on it every third website in the world!.
2. Win RAR
The most popular Windows archiver in the world was created by brothers Evgeniy and Alexander Roshal in 1995. Since then, different versions of this application have been installed hundreds of millions of users around the world. In addition to the application, the brothers also created the RAR archive format itself.
3. 7-Zip
And this one is younger, but no less famous archivist was created by Igor Pavlov in 1999. Has versions for most operating systems. Even for React OS. The number of people who have installed the program also amounts to hundreds of millions.
4. FAR Manager
I was delighted to discover that latest version This file manager dates back to 2016! But it was created by the aforementioned Evgeny Roshal back in 1996. It has a lot in common with the old Norton Commander, but it stopped developing two years later and FAR Manager has gained worldwide popularity (along with Total Commander and other analogues).
4. STL
Standard Template Library standard templates) for C++ was developed by Alexander Stepanov (together with Meng Li) in the 80s and soon ceased to be a third-party add-on and became part of the language standard, which is the third most popular in the world (according to the Tiobe Index for June 2016). Many of the most popular popular applications, including Microsoft Office and a ruler Adobe products(Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro). Yes, Bjarne Stroustrup played the main role in creating the language, but Alexander Stepanov also made a significant contribution by creating STL.
5. IDA
Sometimes it happens that someone else's application does not work correctly and you need to make your own version with slightly modified source code. Most often, this need arises if the program requires you to enter a license key. To see source someone else's program, it is necessary to carry out a disassembly procedure (google technical details at the request of Reverse Engineering, I recommend starting with the article on Lurkmore).
The first version of IDA (interactive DisAssembler) was developed more than 15 years ago by Ilfak Gilfanov (a graduate of Moscow State University). This is a rather highly specialized program, but it has practically no analogues (my very long experience has shown that others are simply impossible to use) and is a monopolist in its niche. In addition to crackers, IDA is also used by virus analysts.
6. Kaspersky Anti-Virus
Kaspersky Lab was founded in 1997 simultaneously with the release of the first version of its antivirus. Since then, he has been actively working to protect the world from malware, developing security software for different platforms and replenishing virus databases. The company sells its products in almost every country in the world and has an annual turnover of more than half a billion dollars.
7. ABBYY Lingvo/FineReader
Company founder David Yan developed his first translator from French back in 1989. In 1993, a text recognition program appeared and off we went. Now ABBYY products can recognize/translate text in dozens of languages, the company sells its products in most countries and earns $150-200 million annually. The company invests part of its income in creating artificial intelligence and supporting talented students.
8. Acronis products
Acronis Backup (data backup), Acronis Disk Director (disk partition manager), Acronis OS Selector (running several operating systems on one computer), Acronis True Image (data recovery) - this company’s software was on every pirated collection of “golden software” 7-10 years ago. These irreplaceable programs are popular all over the world; at the peak of their popularity in 2008, the company's turnover reached $100 million.
The founder of the company is the famous Russian businessman Sergei Belousov, who also heads the Parallels company and the investment fund Runa Capital, which has given birth to dozens of startups around the world (for example, Lingualeo).
Web services
In almost all countries, the most popular search engine is Google. Only in China is it overtaken by Baidu, in South Korea by Naver and Yandex in Russia. Many thanks to the company for having its own search engine, mail service, cloud storage, cards and dozens more useful services. Rarely does a state boast such wealth. In addition to the population of Russia, Yandex services serve residents of most CIS countries.
There are an incredible number of domestic web services. Almost every suitable Western site has a Russian analogue. But I can’t remember any unique website ideas that were invented and implemented in Russia, and then became really popular all over the world.
Software development was quite developed in the USSR. Most of the programs/games were written for oneself and distributed privately, but there was also software well-known in wide circles. Firstly, it is a clone of the Norton Commander file shell - Volkov Commander and the Lexicon text editor. But they were intended for the local population.
Tetris, developed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 and implemented for the IBM PC by 16-year-old schoolboy Vadim Gerasimov (now a Google engineer), became a real sensation throughout the world. The game quickly changed hands in Moscow, then was exported abroad and gradually it came to the purchase of rights to distribute it by Microsoft (not from the developers, but from a Hungarian businessman). History is silent about what Soviet programmers earned from developing the mega-popular “time killer”.
Also speaking about the USSR, it is worth noting “Kaissa” - the world’s first chess champion among computer programs. One could recall the achievements of Soviet scientists in the field of computer science, but this is a slightly different topic.
Sports programming
Why do you so often hear the phrase “Russian programmers are the best in the world”? The text above showed that ours are capable of a lot, but still they are clearly not the best. Participants in professional competitions create a good reputation for Russian coders.
News about victories of Russian teams/individual participants in international competitions appears in news feeds peace regularly. First of all, thanks to the success of these guys, many people believe that there is no one cooler than Russians. In terms of the number of victories in competitions, ours are truly ahead of everyone.
Fan sports programming visible from afar. If you use public transport, then I advise you to take a closer look at the clothes and accessories of bearded guys with backpacks. They are often received as a prize for winning competitions or in memory of participation in a cool event. international conference. Sometimes you read the inscription and think: “What kind of men ride trams!”
Github
If you Google “famous programmers,” you will get a collection of photos of mostly white men. Indeed, famous women in technology are a surprising rarity. In the list of great programmers, you will find at most Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, thanks to whom computers began to be used for scientific calculations.
1. Betty Holberton and ENIAC
ENIAC and the “stop instruction” button
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) - the first electronic digital computer general purpose, which was created as part of a secret US Army project in Philadelphia during World War II.
It was a time when the field of programming was not yet entirely “male”, and women were hired to help on military installations. True, then the operation computers was considered "women's work" as simply pushing buttons.
Male engineers hired a group of six women, called the "ENIAC Girls", to assist in programming ENIAC. There were no books or tutorials then. The ENIAC six studied the program without any languages or tools, but when they finished, they got the machine to calculate ballistic trajectories in a matter of seconds.
ENIAC Girls were trained to understand internal wiring patterns and could pinpoint the source of a problem, down to an individual vacuum tube. Because they knew both the application and the machine, they were able to diagnose problems as well as (if not better than) engineers. At certain points, the knowledge and skills of these women were able to significantly influence the design of ENIAC and other computers. ENIAC programmer Betty Holberton recalls a particularly important episode when she managed to convince John von Neumann to add a “stop instruction” button. At first he was skeptical about the idea, but eventually recognized the need for such a function.
ENIAC was introduced to the public in 1946, but its creators remained unknown. But despite this, before her death in 2001, Holberton said: “I had a fantastic life. Everything I did was the start of something new."
2. Erna Schneider Hoover
Communications, system controlled by a recorded program
If you have ever called technical support and an operator answered you, you have Erna Schneider Hoover to thank for that. She revolutionized modern communications- invented a system with stored program control. With its help, the computer automatically adjusts the call reception speed - this helps to avoid line overload. At that time there was a transition switching nodes from electronic to computer-based, and the systems had an annoying habit of freezing up if there were a lot of calls on the line.
Dr. Hoover was one of the first to receive a patent for her software development, and her technology is still used in call centers around the world. Without Erna Hoover, you would never have gotten through to any Beeline.
3. Karen Spark Jones
Technologies for searching and issuing information
A true industry pioneer, he contributes something that we couldn't imagine our lives without today. Karen Spark Jones developed information retrieval (IR) technologies that allowed users to work with computers using ordinary words instead of equations and codes. This breakthrough was critical for subsequent development search engines. We can see the results of this breakthrough today in the same Google.
Her work informed much of the technology we now work with every day, from the aforementioned search engines to oral document retrieval.
However, Wikipedia summarizes her work in a few short lines. And on resources like Search Engine History her name is not there at all. So it’s ironic and a little sad that her famous statement sounds: “I think it’s very important to attract more women into the field of computer technology. This is too important to leave everything to men.”
4. Judy Malloy
The first hypertext novel
In 1992, a New York Times critic called the young author Michael Joyce "the forefather of the full-length hypertext novel." His book was called Afternoon and was released on floppy disk in 1987. But a year earlier, in the then-rising Silicon Valley, self-taught programmer, conceptual artist and single mother Judy Malloy wrote and programmed the first hypertext novel, Uncle Roger. In it, the reader could click and move between fragments in any order, which changed the course of the story.
Malloy invented a new database system for her novel, and the experience the reader received was completely innovative for its time.
However, while some of the male hypertext pioneers became professors, Malloy and other women were unable to find academic work or get raises. This is just one of many cases where a man has received credit over a woman inventor: women's contributions to DNA research, nuclear decay, signal rockets, and even creation board game Monopolies are also erased from history.
5. Radia Perlman
The Mother of the Internet - the Spanning Tree Protocol
In technology circles, Radia Perlman is known as the "Mother of the Internet" - a title she herself dislikes, insisting that there is no single person who deserves all the laurels for this achievement. However, if we use the almighty Google, we will find many articles that the Internet was created by the “founding fathers” - naturally, all men.
Perlman invented the spanning tree protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges.
“The Internet was not invented by any individual. A lot of people want to get all the credit for it and it drives them crazy if someone else wants the same thing, so the smart thing to do is to stay away from it all. However, because of this decision to “stay on the sidelines,” Perlman’s merits were forgotten by history. As Walter Isaacson writes in his book The Innovators, the problem is that “the creation myth makes heroes out of individuals rather than groups.”
6. Evelyn Boyd Granville
One of the first African-American women to receive a PhD worked at NASA
In 2011, CNN Money asked 20 Silicon Valley companies for annual reporting data to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Only three of them responded to the request - Dell, Intel and Ingram Micro (a large distributor of technology products). From these figures, statistics were compiled: 68% of the 44 thousand employees were white, and only 33% were women. Thus, the tech industry suffers from sexism just as much as it suffers from racism. It's twice as hard for a woman of color to get through here.
Evelyn Boyd Granville is one of the first African American women to receive a doctorate in mathematics. She attended Yale during a time of racial segregation. Over the course of her career, she developed programs that were used to analyze the trajectory of Project Mercury (the first U.S. manned mission in space) and Project Apollo (American astronauts on the Moon).
If you search for information about Granville, you will find a few biographical facts, but not a lengthy study of her contributions. This “erasure” of the research and work of black women (and women in general) in the past is a dismal precursor to current problems. Andre Brook, a professor at the University of Iowa, said in an interview:
This attitude extends throughout the entire industry: investors, financiers, corporate stores, development houses, manufacturers, technology media - even the audience suffers from prejudice. Information technology is perceived as a male and predominantly “white” occupation. This becomes obvious if you look at video game blogs. When authors like Evan Narcisse or Patricia Hernandez bring up issues of race and gender in games, the comments are filled with insults, disdain, and profanity.
He gave an interview in 2012. Imagine what Evelyn Boyd Granville had to deal with during the Jim Crow laws (a widespread informal name for racial segregation laws in some US states between 1890 and 1964 - editor's note).
7. Hedy Lamarr
Invented a radio-controlled torpedo
Hedy Lamarr definitely doesn't look like a computer geek - at least not as far as stereotypes go. She became a movie star and sex symbol when she appeared nude in a scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy. Many Americans will remember her face, but few know about her invention - spread spectrum technology. By manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, she was able to generate an undetectable code that was protected from interception by enemy services.
In 1942, she patented a system that allowed torpedoes to be controlled remotely. Following news of the sinking of an evacuation ship that killed 77 children on September 17, 1940, along with her friend and composer George Antheil, Hedy Lamarr set about inventing a radio-controlled torpedo that could not be intercepted or jammed. Lamarr's idea was the following - if you remotely communicate the coordinates of a target to a controlled torpedo over one frequency, then the enemy can easily intercept the signal, jam it or redirect the torpedo to another target, and if you use a random code on the transmitter that will change the transmission channel, you can synchronize the same frequency transitions at the receiver.
In August 1942, Lamarr and Antheil received patent number 2,292,387, “Secret Communication System.”
The discovery served good service warships, and also served as the basis for modern communication technologies spread spectrum - such as Bluetooth, COFDM (used in Wi-Fi networks) and CDMA (used in cordless phones).
However, its achievements were not widely publicized until recently, although they were used very widely.
Despite her appearance, Lamarr rejected beauty as the only thing for which a person should be recognized.
“Any girl can be charming. All she has to do is stand there and play dumb,” Lamarr said.
8. Sophie Wilson
Received 59 patents, developed an ARM processor
Microsoft recently tarnished its reputation - CEO Satya Nadella, in a speech at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women In Computing, said that women should not ask for salary increases:
It's not really about raising your salary, it's about knowing and trusting that the system will give you the raises you need as you progress. This may be one of the “superpowers” that, frankly speaking, women have that don’t demand a pay rise. This is good karma. All this will then pay off, because someone will know that you are the person they want to trust.
Nadella's tactlessness illustrates latest trends sexism in all industries - the expectation that women should be meek and submissive. But there's at least one woman in tech who hasn't been left to chance: Sophie Wilson. Over the course of her 35-year career, she has received 59 patents and is an unsung heroine of the 21st century.
Her contributions include the development of some of the earliest commercially successful personal computers and the creation of the original ARM processor, descendants of which are currently found inside most mobile devices.
If Radia Perlman is the mother of the Internet, then Wilson is the mother of smartphones and tablets.
Speaking about her work, Wilson said:
Most engineers like to go from step A to step B, following logic. I'm the rare engineer I say: the answer is obviously Z - so you guys will work on the intermediate steps. This makes me not the most stable employee in IT, but quite useful.
9. Carla Meninsky
Game designer at Atari
Many still remember last year's Gamergate, an online anti-feminist movement that wanted to exclude feminists from the dialogue about game development and the industry as a whole. The idea that video games are "owned" by men is a major vitriolic argument among gamergaters, even though research shows that the majority of gamers are women. Members of this movement may be convinced that women being involved in game development is something new, but in fact women have been involved in it from the very beginning.
Carla Meninsky, for example, was hired as a game designer for game console Atari 2600 in the early 80s, although her name doesn't appear anywhere. Dona Bailey also worked as an engineer at Atari, but left the industry due to pressure and criticism from her male colleagues. Unfortunately, little has changed since then. Developer Brianna Wu was forced to flee her home due to the threat of Gamergate.
10. Kimberly Bryant
Founder of Black Girls Code
Kimberly Bryant has not yet been erased from the history of the tech industry, but she is still fighting for proper recognition. Bryant is the founder of Black Girls Code, an organization that strives to encourage minority girls to become interested in computer science. The diversity issue is quite simple: African-American women make up only 2% of all US workers in this industry, while white men make up 51%. At Google, 17% of technical employees are women, of which 1% are African American.
In a world where women are told to be good girls and obediently wait for the increase they deserve; where they are called tough and arrogant for their leadership qualities, where men are promoted for the same set of qualities; where they are threatened with rape and death simply for existing in what is considered a male-dominated industry, where their contributions to technology are forgotten; we must remember that these women must not be overlooked and their achievements must be recorded, celebrated and celebrated.
Sharyl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, said in an interview that society needs to give women credit for their accomplishments: "The way to do that is to carefully document the role women played in the early days of technology." We hope this list helps a little with that.
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Famous programmers who they are and what contribution they made to the development modern world? In this material we will remember the most outstanding personalities in the world of computer science, how and in what they achieved success and why they are not only possible, but should be followed as an example for everyone who is developing in the IT field.
Björn Stroustrup (1950).
Author of the language C++ programming, which supports object-oriented programming. Nowadays, several programs have been created based on C++ modern languages programming. Björn Stroustrup is the author of the books “The C++ Programming Language” (one of the most popular books in the field of programming, translated into 19 languages), “Design and Evolution of C++”, “ Help Guide on the C++ programming language with comments."
Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011).
American computer specialist. Became famous for creating the language C programming, as well as the development and improvement of programming languages BCPL, B, C, ALTRAN extensions for programming language FORTRAN. Ritchie took part in the development of operating systems Multics and UNIX. Dennis Ritchie is the author of the book (with Brian Kernighan) " C programming language»
Richard Stallman (1953).
Founder of the free software movement, the GNU (General Public License) project, the Free Software Foundation and the League for Programming Freedom. He is also an inventor “copyleft” concept.
Linus Torvalds (1969).
Programmer and hacker originally from Finland, Linux developer - the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, on the basis of which the operating system is built Android system is the most widely used smartphone OS in the world.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011).
American entrepreneur, stood at the origins of the era of IT technologies. He was one of the founders, then chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Apple Corporation. One of the founders and CEO of the Pixar film studio.
Steve Wozniak (1950).
American inventor, electronics engineer and programmer, co-founder of Apple. In the mid-1970s, he independently designed the Apple I and Apple II computers, thereby making "microcomputer revolution".
Bill Gates (1955).
One of the richest people on the planet, inventor, programmer and businessman. And most importantly, the founder and largest shareholder of the company Microsoft. At the age of thirteen, Bill wrote his first program - the game "Tic Tac Toe" in a programming language BASIC. Author of the books: “The Road to the Future”, “Business at the Speed of Thought”.
Mark Zuckerberg (1984).
American programmer, creator and developer of the world famous social network Facebook.
Pavel Durov (1984).
Entrepreneur, programmer, one of the creators and developers of a social network "In contact with" and the company of the same name; creator of the messenger "Telegram".
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