
Image credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel CC BY-SA 3.0
Barbara Liskov designed a programming language, called CLU, that had important ideas including modularisation and representing data as simplified objects which hid away information that was not needed (abstraction). This work laid the foundations for the development of object-oriented programming languages such as C# and Java.
More recently, she has devoted time to working on problems related to networks of computers and what happens when things go wrong. Read more about Baraba’s work on distributed systems on the cs4fn website.
CLASSROOM IDEAS
Computing. Have a go at the create-a-face unplugged programming activity. This introduces some object-oriented programming ideas.
PE. In PE work out a method to communicate a move in a sport or a flash mob in dance. How can you be sure everyone has agreed to do the flash mod? What happens if one person can no longer take part? How do you start the action?
This work was supported by the Institute of Coding, which is supported by the Office for Students (OfS).