# James Cordy

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Canadian computer scientist and educator

James Cordy Born James Reginald Cordy (1950-01-02) January 2, 1950 (age 76) Citizenship Canada Alma mater Victoria College University of Toronto Known for Turing, TXL, S/SL, NICAD clone detector Awards ACM Distinguished Member (2008) IBM CAS Faculty Fellow of the Year (2008, 2013) CS-Can/Info-Can Lifetime Achievement Award (2019) Scientific career Fields Computer Science Institutions University of Toronto Queen's University Doctoral advisor Richard C. Holt

**James Reginald Cordy** (born January 2, 1950) is a [Canadian](/source/Canadians) [computer scientist](/source/Computer_scientist) and [educator](/source/Educator) who is Professor Emeritus in the [School of Computing](/source/Queen's_University_Faculty_of_Arts_and_Sciences#Computing) at [Queen's University](/source/Queen's_University_at_Kingston). As a researcher he is most recently active in the fields of source code analysis and manipulation, software reverse and re-engineering, and pattern analysis and machine intelligence. He has a long record of previous work in programming languages, compiler technology, and software architecture.

He is best known for his work on the [TXL](/source/TXL_(programming_language)) source transformation language,[1] a parser-based framework and functional programming language designed to support software analysis and transformation tasks originally developed with M.Sc. student Charles Halpern-Hamu in 1985 as a tool for experimenting with programming language design.[2] His recent work on the NICAD clone detector[3] with Ph.D. student Chanchal Roy, the Recognition Strategy Language[4] with Ph.D. student Richard Zanibbi and [Dorothea Blostein](/source/Dorothea_Blostein), the Cerno[5] lightweight natural language understanding system with [John Mylopoulos](/source/John_Mylopoulos) and others at the [University of Trento](/source/University_of_Trento), and the SIMONE model clone detector with Manar Alalfi, Thomas R. Dean, Matthew Stephan and Andrew Stevenson[6] is based on TXL.

The 1995 paper A Syntactic Theory of Software Architecture[7] with Ph.D. student Thomas R. Dean has been widely cited as a seminal work in the area, and led to his work with Thomas R. Dean, Kevin A. Schneider and Andrew J. Malton on legacy systems analysis.[8]

Work in programming languages included the design of [Concurrent Euclid](/source/Concurrent_Euclid)[9] (1980) and [Turing](/source/Turing_(programming_language))[10][11] (1983), with [R.C. Holt](/source/Ric_Holt), and the implementation of the [Euclid](/source/Euclid_(programming_language))[12] (1978) and [SP/k](/source/SP%2Fk)[13] (1974) languages with [R.C. Holt](/source/Ric_Holt), D.B. Wortman, D.T. Barnard and others. As part of these projects he developed the [S/SL](/source/S%2FSL_programming_language) compiler technology[14] with [R.C. Holt](/source/Ric_Holt) and D.B. Wortman based on his M.Sc. thesis work[15] and the orthogonal code generation method based on his Ph.D. thesis work.[16]

He has co-authored or co-edited the books *The Turing Programming Language: Design and Definition*[17] (1988), *Introduction to Compiler Construction Using S/SL*[18] (1986), The Smart Internet[19] (2010), and *The Personal Web*[20] (2013).

From 2002 to 2007 he was the Director of the [Queen's School of Computing](/source/Queen's_University_Faculty_of_Arts_and_Sciences#Computing). In 2008, he was elected an [ACM Distinguished Member](/source/List_of_distinguished_members_of_the_Association_for_Computing_Machinery).[21] He is a prolific academic supervisor and in 2008 was recognized with the [Queen's University](/source/Queen's_University_at_Kingston) Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision.[22] In 2016 he won the [Queen's University](/source/Queen's_University_at_Kingston) Prize for Excellence in Research.[23] In 2019 he was recognized with the [CS-Can/Info-Can](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CS-Can/Info-Can&action=edit&redlink=1) Lifetime Achievement Award.[24]

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** J.R. Cordy, "The TXL Source Transformation Language", Science of Computer Programming 61,3 (August 2006), pp. 190-210

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** J.R. Cordy, C.D. Halpern and E. Promislow, TXL: A Rapid Prototyping System for Programming Language Dialects, Computer Languages 16,1 (January 1991), pp. 97-107

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** C.K. Roy and J.R. Cordy, NICAD: Accurate Detection of Near-miss Clones Using Flexible Pretty-printing and Code Normalization, Proc. ICPC 2008, IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension, Amsterdam, June 2008, pp. 172-181

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** R. Zanibbi, [D. Blostein](/source/Dorothea_Blostein) and J.R. Cordy, "The Recognition Strategy Language", Proc. ICDAR 2005 - IAPR 8th Intl. Conf. on Document Analysis and Recognition, Seoul, Korea, August 2005, pp. 565-569

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** N. Kiyavitskaya, N. Zeni, J.R. Cordy, L. Mich and J. Mylopoulos, Cerno: Light-Weight Tool Support for Semantic Annotation of Textual Documents, Data & Knowledge Engineering 68,12 (Dec. 2009), pp. 1470-1492

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** M.H. Alalfi, J.R. Cordy, T.R. Dean, M. Stephan and A. Stevenson, "Models are Code Too: Near-miss Clone Detection for Simulink Models", Proc. ICSM 2012 - IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, Riva del Garda, Italy, September 2012, pp. 295-304

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** T.R. Dean and J.R. Cordy, "A Syntactic Theory of Software Architecture", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 21,4 (January 1995), pp. 302-313.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** T.R. Dean, J.R. Cordy, K.A. Schneider and A.J. Malton, "Experience Using Design Recovery Techniques to Transform Legacy Systems", Proc. ICSM 2001 - IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, Florence, Nov. 2001, pp. 622-631

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** J.R. Cordy and R.C. Holt, The Concurrent Euclid Report, Technical Reports CSRI-115 and CSRI-133, Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto, July 1980

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** R.C. Holt and J.R. Cordy, "The Turing Language Report", Technical Report CSRI-153, Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto, December 1983

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** R.C. Holt and J.R. Cordy, The Turing Programming Language, Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 31,12 (December 1988), pp. 1410-1423

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** D.B. Wortman and J.R. Cordy, Early Experiences with Euclid, Proc. ICSE-5, IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Engineering, San Diego, March 1981, pp. 27-32

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** R.C. Holt, D.B. Wortman, D.T. Barnard and J.R. Cordy, "SP/k: A System for Teaching Computer Programming", Comm. of the Association for Computing Machinery 20,5 (May 1977), pp. 301-309.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** R.C. Holt, J.R. Cordy and D.B. Wortman, An Introduction to S/SL: Syntax/Semantic Language, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 4,2 (April 1982), pp. 149-178

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** J.R. Cordy, R.C. Holt and D.B. Wortman, Semantic Charts: A Diagrammatic Approach to Semantic Processing, Proc. ACM 1979 SIGPLAN Symposium on Compiler Construction, ACM SIGPLAN Notices Vol. 14, No. 8, August 1979, pp. 39-49

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** J.R. Cordy and R.C. Holt, "Code Generation Using an Orthogonal Model", Software-Practice and Experience 20,3 (March 1990), pp. 301-320

1. **[^](#cite_ref-17)** R.C. Holt, P.A. Matthews, J.A. Rosselet and J.R. Cordy, The Turing Programming Language: Design and Definition, Prentice-Hall, 1988

1. **[^](#cite_ref-18)** J.R. Cordy, Introduction to Compiler Construction Using S/SL : the Syntax/Semantic Language, Queen's University, 1986, (5th edition, August 2006)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-19)** M. Chignell, J.R. Cordy, J. Ng and Y. Yesha (eds.), The Smart Internet: Current Research and Future Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6400, Springer Verlag, 2010

1. **[^](#cite_ref-20)** M. Chignell, J.R. Cordy, R.Kealey, J. Ng and Y. Yesha (eds.), The Personal Web: A Research Agenda, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 7855, Springer Verlag, 2013

1. **[^](#cite_ref-21)** ["ACM Awards"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120402214109/http://awards.acm.org/homepage.cfm?alpha=C&srt=alpha&awd=157). Archived from [the original](http://awards.acm.org/homepage.cfm?alpha=C&srt=alpha&awd=157) on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2011-03-31.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-22)** ["University Wide Awards | Centre for Teaching and Learning"](https://web.archive.org/web/20151001051147/http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/awards/internal-awards/university-wide-awards). Archived from [the original](http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/awards/internal-awards/university-wide-awards#Award%20for%20Excellence%20in%20Graduate%20Student%20Supervision) on 2015-10-01.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-23)** ["Prizes for Excellence in Research | Queen's University"](http://www.queensu.ca/vpr/prizes-awards/award-winners/prizes-excellence-research).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-24)** ["James R. Cordy"](https://cscan-infocan.ca/awards/james-r-cordy/).

## External links

- [Personal page at Queen's University](http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/cordy)

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