View source for Biography:Bertrand Meyer

{{Short description|French computer scientist}}
{{Infobox person
 |name = Bertrand Meyer
 |image = [[File:Bertrand Meyer recent.jpg|frameless|Bertrand Meyer]]
 |caption = 
 |birth_date         = {{Birth date and age|1950|11|21|df=y}}
 |birth_place = 
 |nationality = French
 |other_names = 
 |known_for = [[Eiffel (programming language)|Eiffel]], [[Design by contract|design by contract]]
 |alma_mater = {{plainlist|
*Université de Nancy
*[[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]]
*École Polytechnique
}}
 |employer   = [[Organization:ETH Zurich|ETH Zurich]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/|title=Chair of Software Engineering Bertrand Meyer|website=Faculty web page for Bertrand Meyer|access-date=28 August 2020|archive-date=18 January 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100118090336/http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/|url-status=live}}</ref>
 |occupation = Professor
 |spouse     = 
 |website    = {{URL|https://bertrandmeyer.com}}
}}

'''Bertrand Meyer''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|aɪ|.|ər}}; {{IPA-fr|mɛjɛʁ|lang}}; born 21 November 1950) is a French academic, author, and consultant in the field of computer languages. He created the [[Eiffel (programming language)|Eiffel programming language]] and the idea of [[Design by contract|design by contract]].

==Education and academic career==
Meyer received a master's degree in engineering from the École Polytechnique<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.polytechnique.org/profile/bertrand.meyer.1969|title=Ecole Polytechnique Alumni page for Bertrand Meyer|website=Ecole Polytechique alumni site|access-date=12 April 2020|archive-date=12 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412135655/https://www.polytechnique.org/profile/bertrand.meyer.1969|url-status=live}}</ref> in Paris, a second master's degree from [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]], and a [[Social:Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] from the Université de Nancy. He had a technical and managerial career for nine years at Électricité de France, and for three years was a member of the faculty of the [[Organization:University of California, Santa Barbara|University of California, Santa Barbara]].

From 2001 to 2016, he was professor of software engineering at ETH Zürich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where he pursued research on building trusted components (reusable software elements) with a guaranteed level of quality. He was Chair of the ETH Computer Science department from 2004 to 2006 and for 13 years (2003–2015) taught the Introduction to Programming course taken by all ETH computer science students, resulting in a widely disseminated programming textbook, ''Touch of Class'' (Springer).

He remains Professor [[Social:Emeritus|emeritus]] of Software Engineering at [[Organization:ETH Zurich|ETH Zurich]] and is currently Professor of Software Engineering and Provost at Constructor Institute (previously Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT)), a new research university in [[Place:Schaffhausen|Schaffhausen]], Switzerland.

He has held visiting positions at the [[Organization:University of Toulouse|University of Toulouse]] (Chair of Excellence, 2015–16), Politecnico di Milano, Innopolis University, Monash University and University of Technology Sydney. He is also active as a consultant (object-oriented system design, architectural reviews, technology assessment), trainer in object technology and other software topics, and conference speaker. For many years Meyer has been active in issues of research and education policy and was the founding president (2006–2011) of [[Organization:Informatics Europe|Informatics Europe]], the association of European computer science departments.

==Computer languages==
Meyer pursues the ideal of simple, elegant and user-friendly computer languages and is one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of [[Object-oriented programming|object-oriented programming]] (OOP). His book ''[[Object-Oriented Software Construction]]'' is one of the earliest and most comprehensive works presenting the case for OOP.<ref>[http://tal.forum2.org/oosc2 "Object Oriented Software Construction, 2nd Edition"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161218211058/http://tal.forum2.org/oosc2 |date=2016-12-18 }} — a review of the book</ref> Other books he has written include ''Eiffel: The Language'' (a description of the Eiffel language), ''Object Success'' (a discussion of object technology for managers), ''Reusable Software'' (a discussion of reuse issues and solutions), ''Introduction to the Theory of Programming Languages'', ''Touch of Class'' (an introduction to programming and software engineering) and ''Agile! The Good, the Hype and the Ugly'' (a tutorial and critical analysis of agile methods). He has authored numerous articles and edited over 60 conference proceedings, many of them in the Springer LNCS (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) series.

He is the initial designer of the Eiffel method and language and has continued to participate in its evolution, and is the originator of the Design by Contract development method.{{Citation needed|date=May 2016}}

His experiences with object technology through the [[Simula]] language, as well as early work on abstract data types and [[Formal specification|formal specification]] (including the [[Z notation]]), provided some of the background for the development of Eiffel.

==Contributions==

Meyer is known among other contributions for the following:
* The concept of Design by Contract, highly influential as a design and programming methodology concept and a language mechanism present in such languages as the [[Java Modeling Language]], Spec#, the [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]]'s [[Object Constraint Language]] and Microsoft's Code Contracts.
* The design of the Eiffel language, applicable to programming as well as design and requirements.
* The early publication (in the first, 1988 edition of his ''[[Object-Oriented Software Construction]]'' book) of such widely used [[Design pattern|design pattern]]s as the [[Command pattern|command pattern]] (the basis for undo-redo mechanisms, i.e. CTRL-Z/CTRL-Y, in interactive systems) and the [[Bridge pattern|bridge pattern]].
* The original design (in collaboration with [[Biography:Jean-Raymond Abrial|Jean-Raymond Abrial]] and Steven Schuman) of the Z specification language.
* His establishment of the connection between object-oriented programming and the concept of software reusability (in his 1987 paper ''Reusability: the Case for Object-Oriented Design'').
* His critical analysis of the pros and cons of agile development and his development of software lifecycle and management models.

==Awards==
Meyer is a member of [[Organization:Academia Europaea|Academia Europaea]] and the French Academy of Technologies and a Fellow of the ACM. He has received honorary doctorates from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia (2004) (returned in 2022) and the [[Organization:University of York|University of York]], UK (2015).

He was the first "senior award" winner of the AITO Dahl-Nygaard award in 2005.<ref name=aito>{{cite web |title=The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize Winners For 2005 |url=http://www.aito.org/Dahl-Nygaard/2005.html |publisher=Association Internationale pour les Technologies Objets |access-date=2006-09-11 |archive-date=2006-10-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004120532/http://www.aito.org/Dahl-Nygaard/2005.html |url-status=live }}</ref> This prize, named after the two founders of object-oriented programming, is awarded annually to a senior and a junior researcher who has made significant technical contributions to the field of OOP.<ref name=aito/>

He is the 2009 recipient of the IEEE Computer Society [[Biography:Harlan Mills|Harlan Mills]] award "for practical & fundamental contributions to object-oriented software engineering".

He is an IFIP fellow, as part of the first group to receive this distinction in 2019, and received in 2017 the [[Organization:Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] [[Organization:SIGSOFT|SIGSOFT]] Software Engineering Educator Award. He was the recipient of an ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Investigator Grant (2012-2017).

In 2006, Meyer received the ACM Software System Award of the  for "impact on software quality" in recognition of the design of Eiffel.<ref>Scientist to receive ACM award for development Eiffel computer language: ACM Press release, 29 March 2007, at [http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/3_2007/eiffel.cfm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070717184734/http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/3_2007/eiffel.cfm|date=2007-07-17}}.</ref>

==Wikipedia hoax==

{{BLP sources section|date=October 2022}}
On 28 December 2005, an anonymous user falsely announced Meyer's death on the German Wikipedia's biography of Meyer. The hoax was reported five days later by the Heise News Ticker and the article was immediately corrected. Many major news media outlets in Germany and Switzerland picked up the story. Meyer went on to publish a positive evaluation of Wikipedia,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/wikipedia/wikipedia.pdf |title=Bertrand Meyer: Defense and Illustration of Wikipedia, at |access-date=2007-06-18 |archive-date=2017-07-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706043010/http://se.ethz.ch/%7Emeyer/publications/wikipedia/wikipedia.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> concluding "The system succumbed to one of its potential flaws, and quickly healed itself. This doesn't affect the big picture. Just like those about me, rumors about Wikipedia's downfall have been grossly exaggerated."

==See also==
*[[Open–closed principle]]
*[[Uniform access principle]]
*John Seigenthaler{{Snd}}another victim of vandalism on Wikipedia.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/ Bertrand Meyer home page]

{{Software engineering}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Bertrand}}
[[Category:Formal methods people]]
[[Category:Software engineering researchers]]
[[Category:Programming language researchers]]

{{Sourceattribution|Bertrand Meyer}}