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Peter J. Denning Editor: David Walden [3B2-9] man201204072.3d 7/11/012 14:3 Page 72 Interviews Peter J. Denning Editor: David Walden A leading scientist in computing wing of a gifted science teacher, I entered three science since his graduation from Massa- fairs with computers made of pinball parts and vacuum chusetts Institute of Technology in tubes—one to compute sums, one to solve linear equa- 1968, Peter J. Denning is best tions, and the last to solve cubic equations. The second known for his pioneering work in computer won the science fair. The third computer virtual memory, especially for worked perfectly but fared poorly at the fair because inventing the working-set model I paid no attention to marketing and presentation— for program behavior, which elimi- avaluablelifelesson. nated thrashing in operating sys- From Fairfield Prep, I went to Manhattan College to Photo courtesy tems and became the reference study electrical engineering in 1960. Although short on of Louis Fabian Bachrach. standard for all memory manage- computing, its curriculum gave me a solid grounding in ment policies. He is also known for practical engineering—the building and testing of his work on the principles of operating systems, opera- things people could use. tional analysis of queueing network systems, the design I came out on top of my class at Manhattan in 1964 and implementation of the Computer Science Network and got a National Science Foundation fellowship good (CSNET), ACM digital library, and codifying the princi- at any graduate school. I applied to MIT in fulfillment ples of computing. A primary goal of Denning’s career of my father’s advice (he had wanted me to attend has always been promoting the science in computer MIT rather than Manhattan). science through education, research, and the general health of the field.1 Walden: Say a bit about MIT. Denning: MIT had a completely different philosophy from Manhattan about EE principles and organization. David Walden: Please tell me a bit about To prepare for the PhD exams at the end of first year, your early life. I took all the MIT EE core courses in addition to my Peter J. Denning: I had interests in math, science, and na- required master’s courses. That intense preparation ture from a young age. At school I was too small to be was barely enough. With the help of my master’s thesis any good at athletics, which were socially popular, so advisor, Jack Dennis, who took me under his wing, I devoted myself completely to academics, which I passed the PhD qualifiers on the second try. He and were not. I have had a long and productive friendship for almost By age 12 I developed an interest in magician per- 50 years. formances, especially those that depended on mathe- My master’s thesis was about scheduling requests for matical tricks. By age 13 I had discovered a deep a rotating disk or drum memory so as to minimize fascination with electricity and electronics, which mean access time, a critical issue for an experimental seemed to have a magic all their own. time-sharing system Jack Dennis had been developing. My parents sent me to Fairfield Prep in 1956 to get During that year, I worked closely with Allan Scherr, me into an intellectual community and out of the who taught me about systems programming, language athletics-infatuated public school culture. Under the design, compiling, data collection in an OS kernel, Background of Peter J. Denning Born: 6 January 1942, Queens, New York. Teaching, 1971; IEEE Fellow, 1982; AAAS Fellow, 1984; Education: Fairfield College Prep, 1960; Manhattan ACM Distinguished Service, 1989; ACM Fellow, 1994; College, BEE, 1964; Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator, 1996; ACM ogy, MS, 1965; MIT, PhD, 1968. SIGCSE Outstanding Educator, 1999; Centennial Engi- Professional Experience: Princeton University, neer, Manhattan College, 1999; George Mason Univer- 1968–1972; Purdue University, 1972–1983; NASA-Ames sity, School of Engineering, best teacher, 2002; George RIACS, 1983–1991; George Mason University, 1991– Mason University, best teacher, 2002; SIGOPS Hall of 2002; Naval Postgraduate School, 2002 to present. Fame, 2005; NSF CISE Education Fellow, 2007; Postel Honors and Awards: Southern Connecticut Award for CSNET, 2009; ACM SIGCSE Lifetime Achieve- Science Fair Grand Award, 1959; Princeton Engineering ment, 2009. 72 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1058-6180/12/$31.00 c 2012 IEEE [3B2-9] man201204072.3d 7/11/012 14:3 Page 73 discrete simulation, and queueing theory. and computer architecture. I took on two Through the thesis, Jack and I showed that PhD students and worked with several shortest latency time disk scheduling was op- others. I collaborated closely on several proj- timal for time-sharing systems. ects with computer scientists Ed Coffman, On passing my PhD qualifiers in the Jeff Ullman, and Al Aho and with electrical spring of 1966, I decided to tackle a much engineers Stuart Schwartz and Bruce Eisen- tougher resource allocation problem, which stein. Those projects extended the working was looming in the design of Multics. The set theory and validated it with experiments. problem was how to build a stable comput- They also codified operating systems ing system from multiprocess computations, principles. which could have large variations in their Prior to Princeton, I helped Jack Dennis processor and memory demands. I had to organize the first ACM Symposium on Oper- learn how to measure the demands of multi- ating System Principles (SOSP), held in Gat- process computations, configure a system linburg, Tennessee, in 1967. At Princeton, with appropriate capacity for the demand, Ed Coffman and I organized a follow-on, and manage the allocation of CPU and mem- SOSP-2, in 1969. There was a huge interest ory dynamically. Jerry Saltzer told me of in gaining a fundamental understanding of thrashing, a major instability they were operating systems, which were the most encountering with multiprogrammed virtual complex computing systems then known. memory systems, and challenged me to find The SOSP has continued every two years a solution. That solution turned out to be since that time. much harder than either of us imagined. In 1969 and 1970, I chaired a task force for My quest produced the theory of locality, the NSF Cosine (Computer Science in Engi- the working set model for program behavior, neering) project, which was developing pro- and a method of system balance for optimal totypes of new core courses for computer control.2 science programs. I invited Jack Dennis, During my PhD years, I also helped Jack Nico Habermann, Butler Lampson, and Dennis teach a course on computational Dennis Tsichritzis to the team on OS princi- models. ples. Our recommendations, released in 1971, were adopted nationally as many uni- Walden: I was a student of yours in that versities created their first systems-oriented course; it was a great course. core courses. Denning: I loved teaching that material and After the task force, Ed Coffman and I de- developed a deep understanding of computa- cided to write a book with the bold title tion and the essential role of machines in Operating System Theory.3 Published in 1973, doing it. Our class notes caught the attention it contained the best material we could find of a Prentice-Hall editor, and we signed a on the fundamental principles of operating contract for a book, Machines, Languages, systems. and Computation, in 1967. Unfortunately, writing a book was more work than I ever Walden: You were then recruited imagined—we did not finish until 1978. to Purdue University? In January 1968 Jack told me I had plenty Denning: By my fourth year at Princeton, pro- of material for my PhD thesis. I went on a motion was not looking good because of a crash program of writing and working with cap on tenured faculty—no more than two my committee. I graduated with my MIT promotions in the engineering school in PhD in May 1968. thenextfiveyearsandatmostoneinour As graduation approached, I pondered EE department, where CS was a minority. where to go next. I had offers from MIT and Early in 1972 I encountered Sam Conte, the three other universities. I chose Princeton be- CS chair at Purdue, on an elevator at a confer- cause it was more attractive to my family. ence. He said, ‘‘I hear you are looking around. I can make you an offer as tenured Walden: At Princeton you continued and associate professor and pay you 50 percent expanded the scope of your research in more salary.’’ Now that was a great elevator the areas of operating systems, as well as pitch! teaching and beginning other research. I interviewed at Purdue in the dead of Denning: Yes, my four years at Princeton were winter. The faculty members were warm productive. I developed and taught new and welcoming. I accepted an offer from courses in the principles of operating systems Sam a few weeks later. October–December 2012 73 [3B2-9] man201204072.3d 7/11/012 14:3 Page 74 Interviews My Purdue years were also productive. my science teacher gave me my first teaching With the help of several graduate students, I experience, for which I wrote a series of lec- continued the working-set project. We showed tures about basic electricity for the science that the working set model was very general; it club. I also wrote articles and even drew car- could simulate any paging algorithm with toons for the school’s magazine. In college, I memory contents that obeyed an inclusion won a couple of essay awards. At MIT I wrote property with increasing value of the control extensive course notes, which as I mentioned parameter.
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