Donald L. Shell

Donald Lewis Shell (born March 1, 1924 in Croswell , Michigan , † November 2, 2015 in Asheville , North Carolina ) was an American engineer and computer scientist . His best-known achievement is the Shellsort sorting method he proposed .

Life

After a fast-moving school career, he went to Michigan Technological University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering . He then worked as an engineer in the Army in the Philippines during World War II .

Back in the United States , he married Alice McCullough of Lima , Ohio, and taught math at Michigan Technological University.

A few years later he moved to General Electric in Cincinnati , Ohio. At the same time, he obtained his Masters degree in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati in 1951 .

During this time, the algorithm that bears his name today, Shellsort, was created and published in 1959.

Shell moved to Schenectady , New York , where he still worked as a manager of engineering at GE. His department later became known as the Information Services Department. This is where the first commercial attempt to network computers as it was later described in the client-server model was made.

Together with John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz, he was involved in the development of a time sharing system.

Together with Ralph Mosher, he founded his own company called Robotics Inc. in 1972. He led the company as General Manager and Chief Software Engineer. Within four years the company had success producing robots for industrial production lines.

After four years the company was sold and Dr. Shell returned to General Electric Information Services Corporation.

He had been retired since 1984 and lived in North Carolina until the end. He spent his time in church activities and in mission. He also developed software for missionary organizations.

Web links

• http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~geneal/shell-donald_bio.htm - Biographical information
• http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/s/Shell:Donald_L=.html - List of Shell's publications

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1. ↑ Donald Lewis Shell ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ DL Shell: A high-speed sorting procedure . In: Communications of the ACM . 2, No. 7, 1959, pp. 30-32. doi : 10.1145 / 368370.368387 .
3. ↑ Biographical information on krypton.mnsu.edu ( Memento of the original dated February 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.