David A. Thomas (software developer): Difference between revisions

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David A. Thomas (software developer)

#REDIRECT [[Object Technology International]]

{{Infobox person

| name = David A. Thomas

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| birth_name =

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| nationality = Canadian

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| occupation = Software developer, academic, CEO, investor, conference organizer

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| education = Bachelor of Electrical Engineering – Carleton University (1969), Master of Systems and Computer Engineering – Carleton University, (1976)

| alma_mater = [[Carleton University]]

}}

{{dablink|This page is about Professor David A. (Dave) Thomas, founder and CEO of [[Object Technology International]], entrepreneur and conference organiser, and not about [[Dave Thomas (programmer)|Dave Thomas]] (PragDave), the computer programmer and author of ''The Pragmatic Programmer''. For other people named Dave or David Thomas, see [[David Thomas (disambiguation)|David Thomas]].}}

David A. Thomas is a software developer, researcher and entrepreneur. He was founder and CEO of [[Object Technology International]], which created the products that became [[IBM VisualAge]] and eventually [[Eclipse (software)|Eclipse]].

He has taught and researched at universities in Canada and Australia, and advises R&D teams in [[big data]] and fast data, [[agile software development]], and [[object technology]]. Thomas is the CEO and Chairman of YOW! conferences and workshops.

== Career ==

=== Carleton University ===

David A. Thomas completed a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at [[Carleton University]] in [[Ottawa]], Canada in 1969, and a Master of Systems and Computer Engineering there in 1976.<ref>http://www.davethomas.net/DaveThomasCV.pdf</ref>. From 1969, he has had a long history of involvement with computing services and research at Carleton, and was appointed an assistant professor and then a professor in 1990. To this day, Thomas is an adjunct professor at Carleton.

In 1984, Thomas started and led the Object Oriented Research Group at Carleton with colleagues Wilf LaLonde and John Pugh.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mastering ENVY/Developer |author1= |author2= |url=https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ld6E19QIMo4C&pg=PR15&lpg=PR15}}</ref><ref name="travels">{{cite web |title=Travels With Smalltalk |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010614144426/http://www.mojowire.com/TravelsWithSmalltalk/DaveThomas-TravelsWithSmalltalk.htm}}</ref> The group created a range of tools for development in the [[Smalltalk]] language including ENVY/Smalltalk (an [[Integrated Development Environment|IDE]]), ENVY/Developer (a team programming and configuration management tool for Smalltalk) and Orwell (a [[revision control system]]).

#REDIRECT=== [[Object Technology International]] ===

In 1988, Thomas founded the company Object Technology International, based in Ottawa, to commercialize the products. He was CEO of the company until its eventual acquisition. An early project was an embedded Smalltalk for [[Tektronix]] [[oscilloscope]]s, developed jointly with Tektronix, [[Digitalk]], and the Canadian [[Department of National Defence (Canada)|Department of National Defense]].<ref name="travels" /> OTI were engaged to help create [[IBM]]'s [[VisualAge]] Smalltalk. In 1996 OTI was acquired by IBM, and the VisualAge range became IBM products. VisualAge Java was the basis for the first release of the [[open source]] [[Eclipse IDE]].

Thomas left IBM in 1998. He spent several years in academia at Carleton, and the Australian universities [[University of Queensland]] and [[Queensland University of Technology]].

=== Agile, Big Data, Fast Data ===

Thomas has guided several startups in Big Data and Fast Data, including [https://kx.com kx]. His own R&D operation in Ottawa, Bedarra Labs, is now the R&D arm of First Derivatives plc<ref>http://www.bedarra.com/company_release.html</ref>.

=== YOW conferences ===

Thomas was part of the organizing committees for [[OOPSLA]], [[ECOOP]], and the Danish Java and Object Oriented (JAOO) conferences for many years.

In 2008, he brought a conference much like JAOO to Australia. English speakers tended to spell out the acronym, while Danes and Germans pronounced the name "Yow". As the conference became less Java-oriented, the decision was made to remove all doubt and call it simply Yow. In Europe, JAOO was renamed GOTO conference in 2011.<ref>http://gotocon.com/aboutjaoo/</ref>

There are now Yow conferences and other events every year in several Australian and Asian cities.

== Awards ==

Thomas was awarded the title of Distinguished Engineer by the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (ACM) in 2008.<ref>https://awards.acm.org/distinguished-members/award-winners?year=2006&award=157&region=North+America</ref>

== Publications ==

Smalltalk With Style

Klimas, Edward J., Thomas, David A. and Skublics, Suzanne,

Prentice Hall, NJ 1996 ISBN 9780131655492

== External Links ==

[https://kx.com/ kx Systems]

[https://www.firstderivatives.com/fd-labs/ FD Labs]

[https://yowconference.com/ Yow Conferences]

== References ==

<reflist/>