Dan Saks is the founder and president of Saks & Associates, a training and consulting company specializing in the C and C++ programming languages and their use in implementing embedded systems. He served as secretary of both the US and international C++ standards committees during their early years. He also served on the C standards committee and was a contributor to the CERT Secure C Coding Standard and CERT Secure C++ Coding Standard.
Dan has written columns for The C/C++ Users Journal, The C++ Report, Embedded Systems Design, The Journal of C Language Translation, Software Development, and the Windows™/DOS Developer's Journal, and contributed articles to Dr. Dobb's Journal and The C++ Journal. Most recently, he was a contributing editor for embedded.com online. His book C++ Programming Guidelines (written with Thomas Plum) received a Computer Language Magazine Productivity Award as one of the best books of 1992. He was also a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for several years.
Dan has over thirty years of teaching experience in both industry and academia. He has taught C and C++ to thousands of programmers in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has presented lectures, workshops and keynote addresses on a wide range of topics at conferences such as the Software Development Conference, the Embedded Systems Conference, the ACCU Conference, code::dive, NDC Techtown, CppCon, and Meeting Embedded. He also served on numerous conference advisory boards.
Beyond writing and teaching, Dan collaborated with Thomas Plum in writing and maintaining Suite++™: the Plum Hall Validation Suite for C++, a product that tests C++ compilers for conformance with the C++ standard. He has also consulted for various industries and defense agencies. Prior to founding Saks & Associates, Dan was a Senior Software Engineer for Fischer and Porter in Horsham, PA, where he designed programming languages and environments for distributed process control. He also worked several years as a programmer with Sperry Univac (now Unisys) in Blue Bell, PA.
Dan graduated with an M.S.E. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. He also received a B.S. with Highest Honors in Mathematics/Information Science from Case Western Reserve University in 1975.