IP: Harlan Mills passed away this week

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: parnas () triose crl McMaster CA (Dave Parnas)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 96 18:40:57 EST
Subject: Mills


Dear Colleagues,


Harlan D. Mills died at his residence in Vero Beach, FL on January 8,
1996. Dr. Mills was born May 14, 1919 in Liberty Center, Iowa and moved
to Florida from Maryland nine years ago. Dr. Mills was Professor of
Computer Science at the Florida Institute of Technology and founding
Chairman of Software Engineering Technology, Inc. of Vero Beach, FL
and Knoxville, TN. He was a member of the Trinity Episcopal Church,
John's Island Club, and Vero Beach Center for the Arts.


Surviving are his wife, Luella C. Mills, and two brothers Eldon Mills of
Orlando, FL and Orval Mills of Sun Lakes, AZ. A memorial service will be
held at noon on Thursday January 11 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Vero
Beach.  The family suggests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in
memory of Harlan to the Harlan D. Mills Scholarship Fund, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996; VNA Hospice, 1111 36th St., Vero
Beach, FL 32960; or the Vero Beach Choral Society, P.O. Box 2801, Vero
Beach, FL 32961.


The following paragraphs are a brief summary of Harlan's distinguished
career and productive life. It was my privilege to work with Harlan during
the last decade of his life; he was a joy to work with. The clarity and
simplicity of his approach to problem solving will be an enduring lesson.
Harlan will be missed by many friends in many circles beyond those known
to me. Please feel free to send this message on to others.


Jesse H. Poore
January 8, 1996






Dr. Harlan D. Mills' contributions to computer science have had a profound
and enduring effect on theory, education, and industrial practice, and his
service to the profession and the nation have magnified the impact of his
contributions manyfold.  Since earning his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Iowa
State in 1952, Dr. Mills has led a distinguished career.  Highlights of his
many contributions follow.


Contributions to Theory
Dr. Mills' explication of the mathematical foundations of software have
had a signal influence on the discipline.  His understanding that a program
is a mathematical function enabled the application of a host of function-
theoretic principles to software development and verification.  His view
of software testing as a statistical experiment enabled a scientific
approach to software evaluation and certification.  He contributed his
ideas to the profession in six books and over fifty refereed articles in
technical journals.
- -  His function-theoretic approach to program verification was presented
   in "Structured Programming: Theory and Practice" (1979), co-authored by
   Linger and Witt.
- -  A collection of his seminal papers on chief programmer teams, top-down
   design, structured programming, program correctness, and other
   fundamental ideas in software engineering was published in "Software
   Productivity" (1983)
- -  His reduction of the mathematics of specification and design to
   to practice was published in "Principles of Information Systems
   Analysis and Design" (1986), co-authored by Linger and Hevner.


Contributions to Education
Dr. Mills has served on the faculties of Iowa State, Princeton, New York
and Johns Hopkins Universities, the Universities of Maryland and Florida,
and Florida Institute of Technology.
- -  At Johns Hopkins and Maryland, he initiated one of the first American
   university courses in structured programming.
- -  At Maryland, he developed a new two-semester freshman
   introduction to computer science and textbook "Principles of
   Computer Programming: A Mathematical Approach," with co-authors
   Basili, Gannon, and Hamlet.
- -  At FIT, he developed a new freshman and sophomore curriculum for
   software engineering using Ada as the underlying language with
   colleagues Engle and Newman.


Contributions to Industry
Dr. Mills was an IBM Fellow and Member of the Corporate Technical
Committee at the IBM Corporation, a Technical Staff Member at GE
and RCA, and President of Mathematica and Software Engineering
Technology.
- -  At GE, he developed a three-month curriculum in management science
   attended by hundreds of GE executives.
- -  At IBM, he was the primary architect of the IBM Software
   Engineering Institute where thousands of IBM software personnel
   were trained in the mathematical foundations of software. He later
   embodied the mathematical and statistical principles for software
   in the Cleanroom software engineering process.
- -  As founder of Software Engineering Technology, he created an
   enterprise for Cleanroom technology transfer.


Service to the Nation
Dr. Mills has had an abiding interest in fostering sound software
engineering practices through federal programs.
- -  During the formative period of the DoD DARPA STARS Program in the
   1980s, he provided fundamental concepts for development of high
> > > >   quality software at high productivity.
- -  In 1986, he served as Chairman of the Computer Science Panel for
   the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.
- -  During 1974-77, he was Chairman of the NSF Computer Science
   Research Panel on Software Methodology.


Service to the Profession
Dr. Mills has been a program committee member and invited speaker for
many professional conferences, and a referee for many mathematics and
computer science journals.
- -  From 1980-83, he was Governor of the IEEE Computer Society.
- -  In 1981, he was the Chairman for IEEE Fall CompCon.
- -  During 1975-81, he served as Editor for IEEE Transactions on
   Software Engineering.
- -  In 1977, he was the U.S. Representative for Software at the IFIP
   Congress.
- -  In 1975, he was the Chairman of the First National Conference on
   Software Engineering.


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