For 54 years, the Turing Award for Excellence in Computer Science has been presented annually by the ACM. It is the highest award in computer science, and its subjects are the historical milestones of computer science.

This seminar will focus on selected Turing awardees, their lives, their outstanding achievements in software engineering, and the impact they have had on modern software engineering. In this seminar, they will scientifically review milestones in software engineering by presenting selected Turing Award winners. In doing so, they will report on the life and work of the awardees and explain the significance of their work for modern software engineering.

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to compare their previously acquired knowledge in software engineering with milestones in the field and recognize and understand the foundations of today's knowledge.
• Students should learn to assess the influence of historical developments on modern software engineering. At the same time, they should assess what further influence the milestones might have on upcoming developments.
• Students gain initial experience in handling externally written scientific papers by writing the proseminar paper. Students conduct an independent literature search on a given topic and evaluate the literature found for its relevance to the assignment.
• Students will also be able to prepare presentations in a scientific context. For this purpose, techniques are introduced that enable them to prepare and present the content to be presented in an auditorium-appropriate manner. Furthermore, students will be able to present the results of their research in written form in a way that is generally used in scientific publications. For this purpose, a workshop Introduction to Scientific Writing and Presenting will be held.