Jean D. Ichbiah (born 25 March 1940) was the chief designer of the Ada programming language, from 1977-1983. At the time, he was a member of the research staff at CII Honeywell Bull (CII-HB) in Louveciennes, France. He had previously worked on an experimental language called LIS (1972-74), based on Simula (in fact, he had been chairman of the Simula User's Group), and participated in IFIP WG 2.4 on Systems Implementation Languages.
After Ada was selected by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Ichbiah left CII-HB and founded the Alsys Corporation, which continued language definition work on Ada and later went into the Ada compiler business. Ichbiah now owns and runs the Textware company, which sells text entry software for PDAs and tablet PCs.
Jean Ichbiah is a member of the French Legion of Honor and the French Academy of Sciences, and received a Certificate of Distinguished Service from the DoD for his work on Ada.
Last updated: 08-22-2005 23:17:07