Adele J. Goldberg was born on July 22, 1945. She is an American computer scientist who helped create the programming language Smalltalk-80. This software makes programming easier and has influenced other languages such as Python, Objective-C, and Java. During the 1970s, while working as a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), she developed many ideas related to object-oriented programming.

Early life and education

Goldberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 22, 1945. Her family moved to Chicago, Illinois, when she was 11 years old, and she lived there for the rest of her childhood. She liked solving problems and studying mathematics from an early age. In high school, she joined the Student Council but later decided this was not the path she wanted to follow. Her teachers encouraged her to study mathematics. In 1963, Goldberg chose to attend the University of Michigan. She found Ann Arbor very different from the life she had in Chicago, and she mentioned the challenges of living away from her twin sister for the first time. Studying mathematics helped her focus on her education during a difficult time in the United States, as President John F. Kennedy was assassinated that same year. She spent three years at the university, took a break to travel in Europe, and then returned to finish her degree. In 1967, she completed her studies and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan.

Interested in computing, Goldberg worked as an intern with IBM during the summer of her junior year in college. There, she learned how to program unit record machines. After graduating, she went to the University of Chicago, where she earned a master’s degree in 1969 and a PhD in information science in 1973. She wrote her dissertation, titled "Computer-Assisted Instruction: The Application of Theorem-proving to Adaptive Response Analysis," while working as a research associate at Stanford University. She also worked as a visiting researcher at Stanford. After earning her PhD, Goldberg briefly taught at a university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before joining Xerox PARC in 1973 as a research scientist. In California, during a meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Users in Education (ACM SIGCSE), Adele met John Stoch, a Xerox employee, and they discussed a computer designed for children’s education called Dynabook.

Career

Adele Goldberg started working at PARC in 1973 as a laboratory and research assistant. She later became the manager of the System Concepts Laboratory, where she, Alan Kay, and other researchers created the programming language Smalltalk-80. At that time, it was uncommon for women to work as computer scientists. However, Alan Kay, who led the development of the first modern computer interface, hired Adele Goldberg even though she was pregnant. This language improved upon the object-oriented approach of Simula 67 and introduced a programming environment with overlapping windows on graphic screens. The goal of Smalltalk at that time was to create a new kind of “personal computer” with features such as portability, network connections, communication with others, the ability to build models, and content sharing.

Smalltalk was easy to use and could be adapted to fit different needs. Objects in the program could be moved between applications with little effort. Goldberg and Kay helped create design templates, which were early versions of the design patterns later used in software development. Adele explained that Smalltalk was inspired by Simula, a language developed in the 1960s. One version of Smalltalk, called Smalltalk 72, was the first to include low-level animations and music. Adele and her team worked with Doug Engelbart, the original inventor of the computer mouse, to explore how the mouse could be used with Smalltalk to improve access and avoid complicated command lines. Smalltalk 72 was Adele’s first chance to teach others about this system.

Along with Alan Kay, she wrote an important article called “Personal Dynamic Media,” which imagined a future where everyday people could use notebook computers to share, change, and distribute personal media. This article described the vision for the Dynabook, a small device that could be carried anywhere and provide information in amounts similar to human senses. The output from the device needed to be of higher quality than newspapers.

Adele was very dedicated to promoting Smalltalk. In 1981, BYTE magazine featured Smalltalk, and she helped write and edit an article to introduce and support the use of object-oriented programming as an important tool in modern society.

Many ideas developed by Goldberg and her team at PARC became the foundation for graphical user interfaces. Steve Jobs asked to see a demonstration of the Smalltalk system, but Adele initially refused. Her superiors eventually convinced her to show it. Apple later used ideas from the Xerox Alto and their implementations as the basis for the Apple Macintosh desktop environment.

From 1984 to 1986, Adele was President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Earlier, she held roles such as National Secretary and Editor-in-Chief of ACM’s Computing Surveys. In 1987, she was awarded the ACM Software Systems Award along with her colleagues Ingalls and Kay for their work on Smalltalk.

In 1988, Goldberg left PARC to co-found ParcPlace Systems, a company that created tools for Smalltalk-based applications. Most of her work at PARC laid the foundation for today’s graphically based user interfaces, which replaced earlier systems that used command lines. At ParcPlace Systems, she served as chairwoman and CEO until the company merged with Digitalk in 1995. She also co-founded Neometron, Inc., an Internet support provider in 1999. She later worked at Bullitics and continued to teach computer science courses at community colleges in the United States and other countries. She is also a board member and adviser at Cognito Learning Media, a company that provides multimedia software for science education.

Achievements and accolades

“The Dynabook mission aims to create a tool, including a creative modeling environment and a curriculum, that helps children share their ideas about how things work and encourages them to think about whether their ideas match reality.” – Adele Goldberg

Goldberg has received many awards and honors for her work in developing computer systems. She served as president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) from 1984 to 1986. In 1987, she shared the ACM Software Systems Award with Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls. She was listed in Forbes's "Twenty Who Matter." In 1994, she became a Fellow of the ACM. She received PC Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. In 2002, she shared the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award with Dan Ingalls. In 2010, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. She earned an honorary doctorate from the Open University. In 2021, she received the University of Chicago Alumni Professional Achievement Award. She also received honorary degrees from the University of Michigan in 2014.

The Computer History Museum (CHM) keeps a collection of Goldberg's papers, reports, books, and videos related to her work on Smalltalk. In 2022, she was named a Fellow of the CHM with Dan Ingalls for helping to create the Smalltalk programming environment and for advancing the use of computers in education.

Selected publications

• Kay, A.; Goldberg, A.; Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1977). "Personal Dynamic mediar" (PDF). Computer. 10 (3): 31–41.
• Goldberg, Adele; Robson, David (May 1, 1983). Harrison, Michael A. (ed.). Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation. Boston: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0201113716. (This book is no longer in print and is often called the "blue book" by people who use Smalltalk.)
• Goldberg, Adele (December 1, 1983). Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment. Boston: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0201113723. (This book is often called the "orange book.")
• Goldberg, Adele; Robson, David (June 1, 1989). Smalltalk-80: The Language. Boston: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0201136883. (This book is often called the "purple book" and is an updated version of the "blue book.")