Portrait of Douglas McIlroy taken at the NATO conference in Garmisch 1968, courtesy of Brian Randell.

Douglas McIlroy is a professor of computer science, mathematician, engineer and famous programmer. He is known for having invented:

• The pipes and filters architecture of UNIX
• The entire concept of software componentry
• Several UNIX tools such as spell, diff, sort, join, graph, speak, tr, etc.

He earned a Bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University in 1954, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT in 1959.

External links

• Doug McIlroy's homepage
• Biography