... more correctly, Allen Wirfs-Brock. (When Brock married Wirfs (
RebeccaWirfsBrock), they considered adopting the name Brock-Wirfs, but chose an alternative that sounded less like a sausage.)
Implementor of Tektronix
SmallTalk. Left
TektronixInc to found Instantiations, which was bought by Digitalk, which was bought by
ParcPlace. When he left
ParcPlace, he bought back the name Instantiations, and now builds Java compilers.
Allen gave
WardCunningham his first Smalltalk system to play with.
Allen reconstituted his company, Instantiations, Inc., parent to Smalltalk Systems, Inc. (which has been given the rights to IBM's
VisualAgeSmalltalk technology, rebranded
VaSmalltalk).
Something to be added about the Java portion of Instantiations bought by Google, open sourced, made part of GWT, etc.
Meanwhile Allen worked at Microsoft and then Mozilla. See
http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/210
CategoryPerson CategorySmalltalk