Robert W. Floyd, 65; Programming Pioneer

Robert W. Floyd, a Stanford University professor who pioneered critical computing techniques, has died. He was 65.

Floyd died of pneumonia Sept. 25 at the Stanford University Medical Center. He had suffered from a neurological ailment for several years.

The quiet and unassuming Floyd avoided the limelight and never became as well known as many other technology giants, even in the Internet age. But colleagues say his contributions were vital to the development of the technologies that continue changing the world.

“At a time when the field was all haze, Bob did very important work in the computer science field,” said David J. Farber, a telecommunications professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “Bob helped build the foundation for many of the things we use today in computer science. But like so many of the pioneers, he was not well known to this generation.”

Born in New York, Floyd was declared a prodigy at age 6 and finished high school at 14. Scholarships let him obtain degrees in liberal arts and physics from the University of Chicago.

He never received a doctorate, but the important papers he published left academe hungry for his talents. He became an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University at 27, and a full professor at Stanford by the time he was 32. He headed Stanford’s computer science department from 1973 to 1975.

Floyd essentially helped design the infant science of computer programming. Many experts consider his most important contribution to revolve around computer program verification.

He basically invented a way to let computer programmers design ways of proving that software would work. Until his 1967 paper on the subject, programmers simply tested software randomly; Floyd’s insights let them design programs much more quickly and reliably.

In 1978, he won the Turing Award from the Assn. for Computing Machinery, one of the highest honors in computer science. He retired from Stanford in 1994 because of illness.

He is survived by four children: Susan Barnet of Butte, Mont.; Michael Floyd of Urbana, Ill.; Sean Floyd of Berlin, Germany; and Erik Schorr of Roseville, Calif.; his mother, Mary Floyd of Alexandria, Va.; and siblings Shelby Floyd of Kamuela, Hawaii; Jeff Floyd of Alexandria, Va.; and Fred Floyd of Elko, Nev.