Editing David Korn (computer scientist)

{{Short description|American computer programmer (born 1943)}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = David Korn
| image       = 
| birth_date  = {{birth date and age|August 28, 1943}}
| birth_place = [[Brooklyn, New York]], U.S.
| alt         = David Korn in Faces of Open Source
| caption     = Korn in Faces of Open Source
| occupation  = Computer programmer
}}
'''David Gerard Korn''' (August 28, 1943<ref>{{cite web |date=October 1969 |title=NASA Notice for Handling Proposals: Numerical Design of Transonic Shockless Airfoils |url=https://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/File:Notice-for-handling-proposals.pdf |department=[[Langley Research Center]] |website=Cultural Resources Geographical Information Systems |publisher=[[NASA]]}}</ref>) is an [[Americans|American]] UNIX [[computer programmer|programmer]] and the author of the [[Korn shell]] (''ksh''), a [[command line interface]]/[[programming language]].

== Education and work ==
{{BLP unsourced section|date=May 2014}}
David Korn received his undergraduate degree in [[mathematics]] from [[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]] in 1965 and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from [[New York University|NYU]]'s [[Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences]] in 1969. After working on computer simulations of transsonic airfoils and developing the Korn airfoil,<ref>http://aero-comlab.stanford.edu/Papers/Garabedian.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}</ref> he switched fields to computer science and became a member of technical staff at [[Bell Laboratories]] in 1976. He developed Korn shell in response to problems he and his colleagues had with the most commonly used shells at the time, [[Bourne shell]] and [[C shell]]. The Korn shell pioneered the practice of consultative user interface design, with input from Unix shell users, and from mathematical and cognitive psychologists.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}} The user interface, which included a choice of editing styles (the choices included styles based on vi and on two variants of Emacs) was incorporated into, or copied by, most subsequent Unix shells. The Korn shell is [[backward-compatible]] with Bourne shell, but takes a lot of ideas from C shell, such as history viewing and [[Vi (text editor)|vi]]-like command line editing.

==Korn shell and Microsoft==
[[Microsoft]] once included a version of the Korn shell produced by [[Mortice Kern Systems]] (MKS) in a UNIX integration package for [[Windows NT]].{{discuss|poorly sourced anecdote}} This version was not compatible with ksh88 (a Korn shell specification), and Korn mentioned this during a question and answer period of a Microsoft presentation during a [[USENIX]] NT conference in [[Seattle]] in 1998. Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager who was participating in the presentation, not knowing who the commenter was, insisted that Microsoft had indeed chosen a "real" Korn shell. A polite debate ensued, with Sullivan continuing to insist that the man giving the criticisms was mistaken about the compatibility issues. Sullivan only backed down when an audience member stood up and mentioned that the man making the comments was none other than the eponymous David Korn.<ref>{{cite web
 |title=NTnx 98...You Are There
 |at=Section: Microsoft's "Services for UNIX"
 |first=George M.
 |last=Jones
 |type=Recap of USENIX LISA-NT 1998 conference, published in USENIX's own [[;login:]]
 |url=https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/usenix-nt98/ntnix.html
 |url-status=live
 |access-date=2025-03-28
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160606014657/https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/usenix-nt98/ntnix.html
 |archive-date=2016-06-06
 |quote=Last but not least in the UNIX/NT integration arena, we must mention Microsoft's "Services for UNIX," announced during the NT futures session. Herein lies a story. Greg Sullivan, the Microsoft product manager for "Services for NT," gets up to describe the product. They're including the Intergraph NFS client and server, "telnet clients and servers that [really work]," and some UNIX command line tools and shells. People asked what the source of the tools and shells was. "MKS." So, a guy goes up to the microphone and starts pointing out where the MKS Korn shell deviates from the specs for the various versions of the Korn shell. To which Mr. Sullivan replies, "Well, do you know of anything better?" To which someone else in the audience replies, "That's David Korn." Can you say "setup"? Can you say "lion's den"?
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |title=David Korn Tells All
 |type=Interview with David Korn
 |date=2001-02-07
 |website=[[Slashdot]]<!-- slashdot.org -->
 |url=http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/06/2030205
 |access-date=2025-03-28
 |url-status=live
 |archive-url=https://news.slashdot.org/story/01/02/06/2030205/david-korn-tells-all
 |archive-date=2012-08-20
}}</ref><ref>{{cite mailing list
 |mailing-list=freebsd-chat
 |title=It's easier to port a shell than a shell script. -- Larry Wall
 |type=A person's take on the David Korn encounter
 |author=<!-- unknown; message forwarded to freebsd-chat mailing list by Joel Ray Holveck -->
 |date=1998-08-29<!-- This is the date the forwarded message made it to the freebsd-chat message; the 1998 USENIX LISA-NT conference was held August 6-8. -->
 |url=https://mail-archive.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199808290627.BAA01517
 |access-date=2025-03-28
 |url-status=live
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250328194421/https://mail-archive.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=156953+0+archive/1998/freebsd-chat/19980823.freebsd-chat
 |archive-date=2025-03-28
}}</ref>

== Other software projects ==
Along with Korn shell, he is also known as the creator of [[UWIN]],<ref>David G. Korn, "UWIN—UNIX for Windows", Conference: Proceedings of the USENIX Windows NT Workshop on The USENIX Windows NT Workshop 1997</ref> an [[X/Open]] library for [[Win32]] systems, similar to the later [[Cygwin]]. Korn and Kiem-Phong Vo also co-developed [[sfio]],<ref>Korn, David G. and Kiem-Phong Vo. “SFIO: Safe/Fast String/File IO.” USENIX (1991).</ref> a library for managing I/O streams.

Korn became a [[Bell Labs]] fellow in 1984.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} He currently lives in [[New York City]], and until 2013 worked for [[AT&T Labs Research]] in [[Florham Park]], [[New Jersey]],<ref>{{cite web|last1=Fowler|first1=Glenn|title=[ast-users] dgk & gsf status|url=http://lists.research.att.com/pipermail/ast-users/2013q4/004368.html|website=lists.research.att.com|access-date=27 November 2014|date=1 October 2013|archive-date=30 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151130233422/http://lists.research.att.com/pipermail/ast-users/2013q4/004368.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> and he retired from [[Google]] in early February 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/dgkorn|title = Dgkorn - Overview|website = [[GitHub]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-korn-b23185 |title=David Korn  |website=[[LinkedIn]]}}</ref>

== Family ==
His parents were Florence<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/recordonline/name/florence-korn-obituary?id=28428498 |title=Archived copy |website=www.legacy.com |access-date=14 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311112022/https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/recordonline/name/florence-korn-obituary?id=28428498 |archive-date=11 March 2022 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and Nathaniel Korn. The Korn family moved to [[Monroe (village), New York|Monroe]] in 1947 where they raised five children.

In 1967 he married Susan Lyn Weiner.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://milestones.marquiswhoswho.com/milestone/david-gerard-korn/|title=David Gerard Korn}}</ref>

David Korn's son Adam used to work at [[Goldman Sachs]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hoffman |first1=Liz |last2=Demos |first2=Telis |title=Wall Street Erases the Line Between Its Jocks and Nerds |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-erases-the-line-between-its-jocks-and-nerds-1534564810?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 |website=Wall Street Journal |date=18 August 2018 |publisher=Wall Street Journal |access-date=20 August 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Hoffman |first1=Liz |title=King of Goldman's 'Straders' to Leave Firm|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/king-of-goldmans-straders-to-leave-firm-11580786325|website=Wall Street Journal|date=4 February 2020 |publisher=Wall Street Journal}}</ref>

== References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
*[http://www.kornshell.com/~dgk/ David Korn homepage] on [http://www.kornshell.com/ Kornshell.com]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korn, David}}
[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni]]
[[Category:American computer programmers]]
[[Category:Unix people]]
[[Category:Scientists at Bell Labs]]
[[Category:Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Google employees]]
[[Category:AT&T people]]