Name Richard Wexelblat | ||
Education University of Pennsylvania, Moore School of Electrical Engineering | ||
Richard L. Wexelblat, aka Dick Wexelblat is an American computer scientist.
Wexelblat received his BSEE, MSEE (CS), and Ph.D. (CS) from The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 6/1959, 6/1961, and 12/1965 respectively. His doctorate is believed by many and so reported by ACM to have been the first ever awarded by a formally recognized Computer Science department.. (Note: not the first CS doctorate, but the first awarded by a CS department. Note as well that Andy van Dam should share this distinction as he completed his CS dissertation at essentially the same time. RLW 01/20/2012)
He is no longer active in the computer field but is now an artisan woodturner.
His sons, Alan and David, and his brother Paul are also computer scientists though Paul is now mostly retired and David is about halfway through law school.
He is said to be the originator of Wexelblat's scheduling algorithm: "Choose two of: good, fast, cheap." [Bob Rosin said I originated this; I'm not sure. He also credited me with having been the first to refer to Occam's Razor as "The Law of Least Astonishment". RLW 04/01/2011]