Harmony at Work

Referred to as "K&R"

Brian Kernighan (pronounced ker-ni-han), Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University,  co-authored The C Programming Language, which has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 27 languages.

C is one of the most popular computer programming languages, and it has influenced nearly all languages in use today, including C++, C#, Java, Javascript, Perl, PHP, and Python.

Before becoming a full-time professor at Princeton, you had a long and brilliant career at AT&T Bell Labs. But let’s go back further. Can you tell us about your childhood and early interests?

Professor Brian Kernighan

I was born in Canada and grew up in and around Toronto.  My father was a chemical engineer, which gave me a bit of exposure to some kinds of science and engineering.  I went to the University of Toronto in a program called “Engineering Physics”, which was meant for students who were pretty good in math and science but didn’t have any idea what they wanted to do.  It was extremely tough because there was a heavy workload and a lot of material — academically, I don’t think I have ever worked as hard since.  But it was a very good foundation for all kinds of later studies, and of course the experience of just working hard full time was good (though painful at the time).  I didn’t really encounter computers until I was nearly done with my undergrad education, but when I did first start to play with computers, I found them great fun, and of course still do.
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