Richard P. Gabriel

Richard P. Gabriel
Richard P. Gabriel
Born	1949; Merrimac, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Computer scientist, entrepreneur, poet
Years active	1970s–present
Known for	Lisp programming language, Worse is Better concept, Gabriel Benchmarks, founding Lucid Inc.
Notable work	"Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big" (1990 essay), Gabriel Benchmarks (1985)

Richard P. Gabriel (born 1949) is a prominent American computer scientist known for his significant work in programming languages, with a particular emphasis on Lisp and Common Lisp. His notable 1990 essay titled "Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big" introduced the idea of Worse is Better. In 1985, he authored the Gabriel Benchmarks within the publication Performance and evaluation of Lisp systems, which set a benchmark for assessing Lisp implementations.

Biography

Born in 1949 in Merrimac, Massachusetts, Gabriel was raised on a dairy farm. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Northeastern University during the years 1967 to 1972. As of 2019, he resides in Redwood City, California with his wife Jo. They have two children: Joseph and Mariko, the latter being a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

Education

Gabriel pursued graduate studies in mathematics at MIT from 1972 to 1973 and received an invitation to join the MIT artificial intelligence Lab; however, this opportunity was halted due to funding constraints. Alongside Dave Waltz, he sought to establish an AI Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, which lasted only two years before disbanding. During this time, he completed a Master of Science degree in mathematics.

He was admitted to Stanford University between 1975 and 1981, where he served as a teaching assistant under Lisp creator John McCarthy, helping to port Maclisp to various operating systems. Gabriel earned his PhD in computer science, concentrating on natural language generation, and became actively involved with the League for Programming Freedom.

Postdoctoral career

Following his doctorate, Gabriel continued artificial intelligence research alongside McCarthy and worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 1984, he founded Lucid Inc., where he acted as President and Chairman until 1992. Lucid specialized in developing a Lisp integrated development environment (IDE) tailored for the SPARC RISC architecture by Sun Microsystems, providing an affordable alternative to traditional Lisp machines. During the AI Winter, the company pivoted towards creating a C++ IDE that incorporated Richard Stallman’s GNU Emacs. Disputes regarding graphical user interface development led Lucid to fork Emacs, resulting in the creation of XEmacs. Among Lucid’s key personnel was programmer Jamie W. Zawinski. The company remained operational until 1994.

Entrepreneurship and open-source contributions

After departing Lucid Inc., Gabriel took on the role of Vice President of Development at ParcPlace Systems from 1994 to 1995 and provided consultancy services to organizations such as Aspen Smallworks before joining Sun Microsystems as a Distinguished Engineer. At Sun, he played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s open source software initiatives, culminating in the release of Innovation Happens Elsewhere. In 2007, he transitioned to IBM Research as a Distinguished Engineer.

Association for Computing Machinery

Gabriel was honored with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows Award in 1998 and received the ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2004 for his pioneering work in programming languages and software design, as well as for bridging interdisciplinary fields including computer science, architecture, and poetry. He also chaired the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications (OOPSLA) conference in 2007.

Poetry

In 1998, Gabriel completed a Master of Fine Arts degree specializing in Poetry at Warren Wilson College. His poetic works have appeared in various literary magazines, and in 2005, he published a chapbook titled Drive On through Hollyridge Press.

Works

External links