Hal Abelson

Harold Abelson (born April 26, 1947) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, professor of computer science and engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He is a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation, creator of the MIT App Inventor platform, and co-author with Gerald Jay Sussman of the widely used textbook Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, sometimes called the wizard book for its cover illustration. He directed the first implementation of the Logo language for the Apple II, making it widely available on personal computers starting in 1981, and published a widely selling book on Logo in 1982. Together with Sussman he developed MIT's introductory computer science subject organized around the idea that a computer language is primarily a formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology rather than just a way to make a computer perform operations, and the two also codirect the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation. He also spearheaded the MIT OpenCourseWare project with other MIT faculty, and led an internal investigation of MIT's role in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz by the FBI.