David Canfield Smith
| David Canfield Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 29, 1945 Roanoke, Virginia |
| Residence | Bend, Oregon |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater |
Oberlin College, Stanford University |
| Known for |
Computer interface icons, Graphical user interface, Xerox Star, Programming by example |
| Spouse(s) | Janet Smith |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
Computer science, human-computer interaction, user interface design |
| Doctoral advisor | Alan Kay |
David Canfield Smith is an American computer scientist best known for inventing computer user interface icons.
Smith was born in Roanoke, Virginia on March 29, 1945. Smith graduated from Chillicothe (Ohio) High School in 1963 and was inducted into the Chillicothe High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame in 2007
Smith attended Oberlin College, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 1967. During the last semester of his senior year, Smith realized he didn't want to pursue a career as a mathematics professor. Smith gained interest in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) after reading Computers and Thought by Edward A. Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman. In his eyes, AI was the future of computing and he wanted to be involved.
In 1967 he began pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University. At Stanford he wanted to develop a computer able to learn. He turned to Alan Kay, a computer science assistant professor at Stanford who also worked in the AI lab, for help. Kay was interested in creating machines that helped make people smarter. Smith shared this same interest and asked Kay to be his thesis advisor. Kay agreed. In one of their first meetings to discuss the thesis (he hadn’t yet thought of a topic), Kay handed Smith a stack of books on art and philosophy, including Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field by Jacques Hadamard, Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim, and The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler. Kay believed that ideas outside of Computer Science were essential to the advance of the field and wanted to share this with Smith. Eventually, Smith also read Art and Illusion by Ernst Gombrich, which came to be one of the most influential books in his life during this time. By reading this book, Smith realized that people were used to certain conventions and if he strayed too far from these conventions with his new ideas, people would not accept or understand them. This helped shape his approach on innovative interaction techniques and integrating the computer into the common workplace. Smith finished his Ph.D in 1975.
...
Wikipedia