UH College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Pioneering Researcher Among Speakers at Software Conference

By Rolando Garcia
Natural Sciences and Mathematics Communications

The designer of C++, a widely used programming language, will be among the speakers at a gathering of software professionals, academics and UH computer science students.

The two-day software engineering conference Oct. 19-20 at UH gives students a chance to meet some of the field’s most prominent figures, said Reza Assadi, a senior computer science major and one of the students organizing the conference.

Topping the list is Bjarne Stroustrup, a professor at Texas A&M University who was the designer and original implementer of C++, which became the most widely used language supporting object-oriented programming by making abstraction techniques affordable and manageable. Other languages like Java build on Stroustrup’s pioneering research.

At the conference Stroustrup is slated to discuss a new version of the C++ language that is in the works.

The conference also will feature Peter Freeman, a former assistant director of the National Science Foundation, and Sridhar Vajapey, vice president of technology for Sun Microsystems Inc. Sun is a Fortune 500 company that sells computer networking products.

About 140 people, half of them students, already have registered for the event.. Cougar CS, the university’s student computer science club, organized the conference.. Putting the conference together was a daunting task, Assadi said, but the club made sure that the eight speakers it booked to address the conference were leaders in the software engineering field.

CougarCSFaculty and those in the software business also will be among the estimated 200 attendees.

“This gives computer science students an opportunity to network with people in the industry,” Assadi said.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To learn more about the conference go to http://www2.cs.uh.edu/~sec/

It begins at 9 a.m. at the Conrad Ballroom, Room 202B, at the Hilton Hotel at UH. The event coincides with the Oct. 20 Computer Science Open House at Philip G. Hoffman Hall, so attendees also will be able to take a peek at the most exciting high-tech projects from the computer science faculty.
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