Anders Hejlsberg - Lead architect of C#

Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Visual C# (CSharp, C Sharp, C-Sharp) Developer Training, Visual Studio

Anders Hejlsberg,
Microsoft Technical Fellow
and Chief Architect, C#

Anders Hejlsberg (born 1960) is a Danish software engineer. He designed several successful programming languages and development tools. Currently, he works at Microsoft as the lead architect of the C# programming language.

Hejlsberg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied engineering at the Technical University of Denmark. In 1980, while still in the university, he began writing a Pascal compiler for the Nascom microcomputer marketed as the Blue Label Pascal compiler for the Nascom-2. Soon, he ported it to the CP/M and MS-DOS operating systems. These versions were marketed as Compas Pascal and as PolyPascal, respectively.

The compiler was sold to Borland where it was known as the Turbo Pascal compiler. Turbo Pascal became the most commercially successful Pascal compiler in history. Hejlsberg became Chief Engineer at Borland. In time, Hejlsberg became the Chief Architect for the replacement for Turbo Pascal—Delphi.

After 13 years with Borland, Hejlsberg joined Microsoft in 1996. Initially, he initially worked as an architect of Visual J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). Then, Hejlsberg became chief designer of C# and a key figure in the creation of the Microsoft .NET Framework. He became a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and Technical Fellow.

Since 2000, he has lead the ongoing development of the C# programming language. In 2001, Hejlsberg received the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award for his work on Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C#, and the Microsoft .NET Framework.