Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Peter Naur Wins 2005 Turing Award

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the celebrating-people-who-deserve-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Peter Naur the winner of the 2005 A.M. Turing Award. The award is for Dr. Naur's fundamental contributions to programming language design and the definition of Algol 60, to compiler design, and to the art and practice of computer programming. The Turing Award is considered to be the Nobel Prize of computing, and a well-deserved recognition of Dr. Naur's pioneering contributions to the field."

135 comments

  1. Took a while, didn't it? by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The designer of Algol-60 is only getting this recognition in 2006? What?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    1. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 4, Informative

      This may help to explain his importance even to this day:

      The Backus-Naur form (BNF) (also known as the Backus-Naur formalism, Backus normal form or Panini-Backus Form) is a metasyntax used to express context-free grammars: that is, a formal way to describe formal languages.

      Taken from the wikipedia page.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    2. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They had to make sure everybody dropped the language before recognizing it. An upswing in popularity would probably have kept the language alive. Would you be the one be programming in Algol? I thought so.

    3. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by 0xC0FFEE · · Score: 5, Funny

      I hear the Turing committee actually has an infinite red tape.

    4. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny
      The designer of Algol-60 is only getting this recognition in 2006?

      Must be why they compare it with the Nobel.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    5. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by eclectro · · Score: 1

      I hear the Turing committee actually has an infinite red tape.

      Yes they do. But they are busy beavers.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    6. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by foonf · · Score: 4, Informative

      John Backus won the award in 1977 though, so it is quite legitimate to ask, as the original poster did, why they didn't recognize Naur sooner.

      --

      "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
    7. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the Turing Award is a lifetime achievement kind of thing.

    8. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1
      The designer of Algol-60 is only getting this recognition in 2006? What?

      This is to help it fit into the history of the language in general. Even though it's almost always referred to as Algol 60, the ISO standard wasn't approved until 1984!

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    9. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by ktwombley · · Score: 1

      Mod parent +6 Funny.

    10. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It took a while because noone nominated him until now. As a matter of fact, I am a senior Computer Engineer at Syracuse University taking a compiler class tought by the distinguished Dr. Per Brinch Hansen, who nominated Peter Naur for this award. (I forgot the exact number, but the ACM committe responsible for selecting the winners, recieved many recommendations for Naur from previous Turning award winners because of his credentials and Hansen's nomination). So congradulations to Naur on his prestigous award, and as the old saying goes "better late than never".

    11. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Parent is best comment ever

    12. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Does this mean he's indistinguishable from a sentient being?

    13. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by rickumali · · Score: 1

      At this rate, Larry Wall might get a Turing in 2040. :-)

      --
      rickumali@gmail
    14. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by hopopee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe it has something to do with Backus leading the project that created the FORTRAN language. You know, one of the most used languages ever. That is still used for scientific calculating.

    15. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Speaking of years, a near equivalent of Backus-Naur Form had been used sometime in 5th century BCE (yes, 2500 years ago) by Panini to describe the grammar of Sanskrit language.

    16. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by rmstar · · Score: 1

      At this rate, Larry Wall might get a Turing in 2040. :-)

      As far as I am concerned, he deserves a pantheon in the Turing tarpit.

    17. Re:Took a while, didn't it? by Rufus88 · · Score: 1

      Nah, I think it was because of his pioneering work on Gilligan's Island and Mr. Magoo.

  2. Yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Can he pass the Turing test himself?

  3. There is a saying... by geoff+lane · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..."Algol 60 is a great improvement on all its successors"

    Nice to see Peter getting some recognition.

    1. Re:There is a saying... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1
      Algol 60 is a great improvement on all its successors

      I had a look at it and was left wondering what we have been doing with programming languages for the last 50 years. Since then we seem to have invented automatic garbage collection, standardised API's and protocols and OO.

      Its a shame. Is the idea of a "language" the problem? Perhaps its time we moved on to something totally new. Don't ask me for examples, though.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    2. Re:There is a saying... by cortana · · Score: 1

      Who knows, indeed? ;)

    3. Re:There is a saying... by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It isn't the idea of a language thats the problem, the idea that language matters is the problem. Any problem can be solved in any Turing complete language. There's little to no difference between them. You're not going to write code an order of magnitude faaster because you change language. Short of having an API class you can leverage in one language and not the other, you'll be hard put to program faster by a factor of 10%, if you know the syntax of both languages equally well.

      The real problem is code reuse. 95% of what we do on a daily basis is to reinvent features available elsewhere. What we need are well designed, easy to use libraries that we can leverage and have most of the work done for us. Closed source programs are killing us, as we can't leverage off each other. Its like going back to the days of Newton and Liebnitz and requiring all mathematicians to prove the same ideas without reference to one another's work before moving on. Its ridiculous, and its the reason for our problems.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    4. Re:There is a saying... by belmolis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is much more difficult to master and retain the syntax of some languages than of others, so a lot of the time you aren't going to know them equally well. In any case, I think you're just wrong about language not making a difference. It is much slower to write in a low-level language than in a high-level language. Sure, you may have mastered the syntax, but you still have to spend time and mental energy keeping track of what goes where if you don't have data structures like structs and arrays, and just adding automatic storage allocation and garbage collection saves a lot of time and bugs.

    5. Re:There is a saying... by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree- arrays and structs are made by quick macros, even in assembly. Think of it like an accessor function. It takes a small time up front to write- not a significant effort. I'm about 90% of the speed writing in asm than I am in C++.

      Garbage collection is a whole other rant- thats a complete strawman. Memory management takes a minor amount of time (almost 0), and making sure you properly null out dangling references in Java takes about as much. I find the problem to be totally different- there's a subset of programmers who just don't understand memory management. These people suck as programmers- everything you do in programming is resource management. Memory- alloc, use, free. Files- open, use, close. Networking- connect,use,close. Having people who don't understand that pattern on your team causes work to slow down by large amounts because of their incompetnece, not because of the language.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    6. Re:There is a saying... by belmolis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you've got macros in assembler with macros that make structs and arrays easy, you're not writing real assembler but one of those new-fangled intermediate languages. That's a step up right there.

      Anyhow, its the storage allocation that is the big thing. I just don't agree that it makes such a small difference. It isn't just the need to free up what you use - that's relatively easy. It's the constant checking of whether you've got enough or need to reallocate, and the sometimes complicated and error-prone calculations of how much you need.

      I'm a very experienced C-programmer (24 years) and the storage allocation idioms reside in my fingertips, yet when dealing with a lot of variable length strings, for example, I know that it is much faster to write in a high-level language like Tcl than in C. And studies of programmers seem to show this quantitatively.

      Another feature that I suspect is helpful, if not in making things go faster, in reducing the expenditure of mental energy, is the use of iterators like foreach. Being able to iterate over a list without having to worry about what the first index is and what the last index is etc. as with a C-style for makes it much easier.

    7. Re:There is a saying... by danielk1982 · · Score: 2

      Any problem can be solved in any Turing complete language. There's little to no difference between them. You're not going to write code an order of magnitude faster because you change language.

      You've got to be kidding me. There are plenty of cases where you will write code a magnitude faster if a language is changed. Can you write a web application supporting complex business logic in C? Yeah you can. But it absolutely doesn't compare to Rails, Struts, or asp.NET. A Perl program might take a few lines while the equivalent Java code might take tens of lines. Or how about this, how many lines of C code would it take to generate a user interface of slashdot, and how much conceptually harder would it be to understand than the html/css that its specified with now? Its all bits underneath, but a language can make all the difference.

      Honestly, by your logic we shouldn't have gone further than assembler.

      95% of what we do on a daily basis is to reinvent features available elsewhere.

      I think you're overstating this. There are already plenty of libraries used by developers, but the simple fact is you'll never have a library for everything (not even close). You will need custom code, if only to weave provided libraries together.

    8. Re:There is a saying... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not going to write code an order of magnitude faster because you change language.

      That's a swell statement on paper and in theory, but in the real world, to borrow a phrase, it is "nonsense".

      Much like political ideals being limited only by barriers of diminished human integrity, so it is with your idea. As humans, we study, think, and furthermore write programs in a way that "feels" natural to us. We always come to put things in a perspective native to us, and we will always be most productive when we are most comfortable with the tools we use; this is the case in art, craftsmanship, and even programming. Heck, as an example, the hordes here on Slashdot will mostly swear by one text editor or another for programming -- I'm sure even an irrelevant "environmental factor" such as a developer's editor of choice would result in magnitudes of difference with respect to productivity.

      In a perfect world, you are, of course, correct. In a world where all developers have no prefered syntax or programming structure predefined in their mind, no vision or "feel" for code, these perfect-minded developers would be indifferent in their efficiency with varying languages. However, we do not live in that alternate universe (the one where you actually have a valid argument and not the pretentious babbling of a complete smart-ass). Surely there are programmers who are, by all means, superb with a language such as C, but purely functional languages would just be out of any possible train of thought they might board any time in their development career, so to speak.

      Summatively: you are absolutely wrong, so suck it down. We're not all Lt. Cmdr. Data.

    9. Re:There is a saying... by deander2 · · Score: 1

      and making sure you properly null out dangling references in Java takes about as much.

      i always hate it when my references dangle. (so embarrassing. :)

      --
      http://kered.org
    10. Re:There is a saying... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You've got to be kidding me. There are plenty of cases where you will write code a magnitude faster if a language is changed. Can you write a web application supporting complex business logic in C? Yeah you can. But it absolutely doesn't compare to Rails, Struts, or asp.NET


      I disagree. A quick download of a few libraries to help out (a database access library, a regex library, a better string library, maybe one or two others) and I'm ready to go. Rails is a particularly poor example- yeah, it autogenerates a lot of code, but if you want to go even slightly out of lockstep with it, you have a lot of fighting against it to do.

      There are already plenty of libraries used by developers, but the simple fact is you'll never have a library for everything (not even close). You will need custom code, if only to weave provided libraries together.


      Of course. But I don't think I overstated by much. Much of what we do daily is reinvent the wheel. Usually poorly (if we were inventing a better wheel I wouldn't complain). New languages aren't going to boost our productivity, not compared to the boost we'd get from not having to write the damn code in the first place.
      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    11. Re:There is a saying... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Why do you have to worry about increasing your string length? That should be taken care of by your string library. Lets say you want to concatenate 2 strings. YOu don't just use strcat() do you? The correct way to do it is to write a function that goes something line this


      string* strcat(string *str1,string *str2){
          if(str2.length+str1.length>str1.size){
              if(reallocstr(dst,str2.length+str1.length)==ALLOCE RROR){
                  return NULL;
              }
          }
          memcpy(str1.buffer+str1.length,str2.buffer,str2.le ngth);
          return str1;
      }


      Where string is a struct defined by the library. If you're using the plain C string library, that in itself is a problem- you're right, using it is slow and requires you to keep track of too much stuff. So don't-- use a better string library. There's a few dozen in C you can download off the web.

      Another feature that I suspect is helpful, if not in making things go faster, in reducing the expenditure of mental energy, is the use of iterators like foreach. Being able to iterate over a list without having to worry about what the first index is and what the last index is etc. as with a C-style for makes it much easier.


      So why don't you write a list library that takes a function pointer and calls it on each member of the list? Or one that at least has functions so you can look like this (assume a list of ints for the following example):


      for(int iter=begin(list);iter!=end(list);iter=getnext(list ,iter)){
          int val=getval(list,iter); //do work
      }


      Your problem doesn't seem to be C, its using C poorly. If you're not doing stuff like this, you're working at the wrong level of abstraction. That leads to slow to write, buggy code in any language. And its equally likely in any language.
      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    12. Re:There is a saying... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Much like political ideals being limited only by barriers of diminished human integrity, so it is with your idea.


      Other than disagreement, I'm not sure WTF you're trying to say here. Try to stick to one rant at a time, and you'll make much more sense.

      We always come to put things in a perspective native to us, and we will always be most productive when we are most comfortable with the tools we use; this is the case in art, craftsmanship, and even programming. Heck, as an example, the hordes here on Slashdot will mostly swear by one text editor or another for programming -- I'm sure even an irrelevant "environmental factor" such as a developer's editor of choice would result in magnitudes of difference with respect to productivity.


      True, to some extent. Point a gun at my head and tell me to program Lisp and I'll do so more slowly than C. This is not due to flaws in Lisp, but due to the fact that the syntax is not familar to me. As I said, my point is that when EQUALLY experienced with the syntax of 2 languages then there is no difference. Its not Lisp or C or Java or ASM that causes us to be slower programmers, its our unfamiliarity with it. My point is that its nothing inherent in the language that slows us down, and nothing inherent in some other language will speed us up. Its 100% a matter of familiarity. Looking for some new language which will magicly make you more productive is a wild goose chase.
      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    13. Re:There is a saying... by brpr · · Score: 1

      But instead off using all this horrid C libraries, you could just write in a language which actually supported some high-level idioms.

      And there's a lot of very useful stuff (e.g. functional programming) that you just can't do in C.

      --
      Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
    14. Re:There is a saying... by brpr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And how exactly would you implement Rails' reflective object/database mapping in C?! Takes more than a string library.

      --
      Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
    15. Re:There is a saying... by typical · · Score: 1

      i always hate it when my references dangle. (so embarrassing. :)

      You should free them.

      --
      Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
    16. Re:There is a saying... by TheAncientHacker · · Score: 1
      I had a look at it and was left wondering what we have been doing with programming languages for the last 50 years.

      Rather than actually developing programming languages we've been doing 873 virtually identical variation on C...

      Pathetic, isn't it.

    17. Re:There is a saying... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been reading your comments on this thread, and there is a certain truth to what you're saying, but I still think you're missing something. Are you familiar with how different but still useful programming languages have been developed in the CS research community? Can you explain, how does your thesis apply to the very different styles of programming applied in logic programming languages like Prolog (especially concurrent logic programming like Mozart/Oz, if you're familiar with it), pure functional programming in the style of Haskell, as opposed to modern object-oriented industrial code? Many smart folks feel that some of these languages are intrisically more suited to the kind of programming they do.

    18. Re:There is a saying... by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      "It isn't the idea of a language thats the problem, the idea that language matters is the problem. Any problem can be solved in any Turing complete language. There's little to no difference between them."

      I have a very nice OS kernel project for you to develop in TeX, ok?

      --
      Rethinking email
    19. Re:There is a saying... by urbanRealist · · Score: 1
      The real problem as I see it with languages like C and C++ is that they've been around so long that where ever you go, you'll run into a different library that was written to solve these types of problems.

      Most of these libraries are difficult to use. What makes Java nice is not necessarily the garbage collection, but the API. I can really treat method calls as black boxes that take my arguments and do what the documentation says they're going to do. I simply can't say the same for all the custom libraries I've encoutered in C/C++ for doing the same types of things. I have to either resort to reading source code if it's available, or being very frustrated while I try to guess what the original programmer intended.

      So, while your contention that programming languages don't matter is certainly true in theory, but not always in practice.
      --
      I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
  4. I didn't think by Eightyford · · Score: 4, Funny

    I didn't think humans could win this award.

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
    1. Re:I didn't think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't think any ACM members were allowed to be human.

  5. Me, like many readers of slashdot by RedLaggedTeut · · Score: 2, Funny

    Me, like many readers of slashdot, also hope to pass the Turing test one day, so I congratulate him on this achievement.

    Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia, the Turing test passes you.

    --
    I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
    1. Re:Me, like many readers of slashdot by MyLongNickName · · Score: 3, Funny

      Me, like many readers of slashdot, also hope to pass the Turing test one day, so I congratulate him on this achievement.

      You passed the test. No computer would mangle the pronoun usage like this! ;)

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    2. Re:Me, like many readers of slashdot by weg · · Score: 5, Funny

      According to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this will be hard, if you are a Computer Scientist:

      (copied from http://www.h2g2.com/ )

      Dave? Are you there Dave?

      A test for artificial intelligence suggested by the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The gist of it is that a computer can be considered intelligent when it can hold a sustained conversation with a computer scientist without him being able to distinguish that he is talking with a computer rather than a human being.

      Some critics suggest this is unreasonably difficult since most human beings are incapable of holding a sustained conversation with a computer scientist.

      After a moments thought they usually add that most computer scientists aren't capable of distinguishing humans from computers anyway.

      --
      Georg
  6. One of Peter Naur's Contributions by Wayne_Knight · · Score: 2, Funny
    Look, Naur is mentioned right in the code!
    $ diff -Naur inftrees.c../zlib-1.2.2.orig/
    --- inftrees.c 2005-07-10 13:38:37.000000000 +0100
    +++../zlib-1.2.2.orig/inftrees.c 2004-09-15 15:30:06.000000000 +0100
    @@ -134,7 +134,7 @@
    left -= count[len];
    if (left < 0) return -1;/* over-subscribed */
    }
    - if (left > 0 && (type == CODES || max != 1))
    + if (left > 0 && (type == CODES || (codes - count[0] != 1)))
    return -1;/* incomplete set */
    Not much of a criterion for a Turing Award, though...
  7. Obligatory Typo Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "the winner of the 2005 A.M. Turing Award."

    Stay tuned for the 2005 P.M. Turing Award - commonly considered to be the Nobel Prize of the Online Porn industry.

    1. Re:Obligatory Typo Joke by mlow82 · · Score: 1

      There's no typo there. Turing's full name is Alan Mathison Turing.

    2. Re:Obligatory Typo Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a joke, get over with it.
      whooosh!

    3. Re:Obligatory Typo Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But not a typo joke, since there was no typo.

    4. Re:Obligatory Typo Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The joke is that the submittor misspelled "online porn industry".

  8. Just Algol-60? by endrue · · Score: 1

    What about Backus-Naur form?

    --
    I meta-moderate because I care.
    1. Re:Just Algol-60? by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1
      What about Backus-Naur form?

      RTFA. They mention BNF as well -- though they certainly don't give it as much time and space as it deserves. ALGOL was a tremendous accomplishment, but IMO, BNF far greater still. Then again, it's open to argument that John Backus really deserves most of the credit for BNF. At one time, BNF was an abbreviation for "Backus Normal Form" and only later was Peter Naur's name added in.

      Interestingly, Naur didn't seem quite as impressed with the success of Algol 60 as many people currently seem to be. In a comment on a draft for the Algol 68 report, Naur said: "...nothing seems to have been learned from the outstanding failure of the Algol 60 report..."

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    2. Re:Just Algol-60? by weg · · Score: 4, Informative

      BNF originally stood for "Backus Normal Form", and the name Backus Naur Form was introduced by Donald Knuth:

      @article{365140,
        author = {Donald E. Knuth},
        title = {Backus Normal Form vs. Backus Naur form},
        journal = {Commun. ACM},
        volume = {7},
        number = {12},
        year = {1964},
        issn = {0001-0782},
        pages = {735--736},
        doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/355588.365140},
        publisher = {ACM Press},
        address = {New York, NY, USA},
        }

      --
      Georg
  9. Sample code by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1

    For those of you like me and have never worked with this language, some sample code is here

    I think I would have been driven nuts trying to find the unmatched ' in my code.

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    1. Re:Sample code by Heembo · · Score: 1

      I think I would have been driven nuts trying to find the unmatched ' in my code.

      And you call yourself a programmer? Build a macro or some kind of simple code to check FOR you!

      --
      Horns are really just a broken halo.
    2. Re:Sample code by GoofyBoy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Build a macro or some kind of simple code to check FOR you!

      I did one in LISP; I'm still trying to find an unmatched (.

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    3. Re:Sample code by musakko · · Score: 3, Funny
      For those of you like me and have never worked with this language, some sample code is here [monash.edu.au]

      Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
      Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
      Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
      Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
      Spock: Affirmative.
      Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
      Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.

      No more wordy than COBOL. Seems like a cool language
  10. From : A grateful computer user by KennyP · · Score: 1


    Sir,

    I thank you for helping define structured computer programming languages. Programs were the dreams of the wireheads half a century ago. Now, if you can type, we can only hope you never see the dreaded :

    SYNTAX ERROR : GOSUB WITHOUT RETURN
    LINE 380

    Guess what language I learned to program first? :-P

    Visualize Whirled P.'s

    1. Re:From : A grateful computer user by bensch128 · · Score: 1

      What were you doing??!!??
      Your problem was that you didn't follow Dijkstra's paper "Go To Statement Considered Harmful"

      Geez, get a clue, noob.

    2. Re:From : A grateful computer user by Bush+Pig · · Score: 1

      GOSUB is different to GOTO. It's BASICly a procedure call.

      --
      What a long, strange trip it's been.
  11. Babel Fish by tepples · · Score: 1

    No computer would mangle the pronoun usage like this! ;)

    O rly?

  12. Datalogy by Peter_Pork · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Peter Naur is an interesting character. For example, he dislikes the term "Computer Science", and prefers "Datalogy". He also gives Backus the whole credit for inventing BNF, which he calls the Backus Normal Form. I'm sure he has a better name for Algol-60...

    1. Re:Datalogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I'm sure he has a better name for Algol-60...

      Unfortunately, there is already a programming language called brainfuck

    2. Re:Datalogy by fm6 · · Score: 1
      Naur is hardly alone in not liking "computer science". The department where I studied CS was called "Information Science" because (as the chairman put it) computers are just instruments, not the thing being studied; do you call astronomers "telescopists"?

      But that's actually wrong. Computers are instruments, but they're not just instruments. Their existence drives the whole discipline. Leave "computer" out of the terminology and most people won't know what you're talking about. When I told people I was majoring in "Information Science", they though I was studying to be a librarian! "Datalogy" is even worse.

    3. Re:Datalogy by Krakhan · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's most likely for that reason Djikstra preferred the term "Computing Science" himself.

    4. Re:Datalogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Well, in Danish we actually use the term "Datalogi". And danish people I meet seem to known what I'm studying when I say Datalogy. That is, they known it has something to do with computers.
      But that's just the recuring problem we as computer scientists meet. Ordinary people think every one working with computers is doing the same work as Joe from the IT dept who helps them connect their Palm handheld.

    5. Re:Datalogy by javax · · Score: 1

      Thats cool - in Germany CS is called "Informatik". I haven't seen any students of "Computerwissenschaft" or something similar here.

      Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. [Edsger Dijkstra]

    6. Re:Datalogy by jawtheshark · · Score: 1
      Same in Dutch ("Informatika") and in French ("Informatique").

      I still translate my degree (which is in dutch) to "Computer Science" because most non-german/dutch/french people have no idea what I'm talking about if I say "Informatics" :-)

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    7. Re:Datalogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      He's a very funny character indeed. I study at DIKU where Naur used to work, and one of the funny things he invented was "the Naur frame".

      The Naur frame is an A4 sized piece of cardboard with a hole in it like a picture frame. When he would read and grade a report he would place this frame over the report when reading it. So if your margin was too narrow the frame would cover some of your text. He would then give you a horrible grade because your report didn't make any sense.

      A rather hard way to force people into having large margin, but also quite funny.

    8. Re:Datalogy by dkasak · · Score: 1

      Interesting. It's also called 'Informatika' in Croatian.

    9. Re:Datalogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strange. In danish "informatik" refers to a combination of CS and the humanities disciplines. Combining the technical CS with the humanities studies.

    10. Re:Datalogy by perkr · · Score: 2, Informative

      In Swedish Computer Science is "datalogi", and the term "informatik" is somewhat loosely translated into "media and information science".

    11. Re:Datalogy by paradigm82 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here are some other stories (I study at DIKU too): * For most reports handed in at DIKU (like on most other universities I guiess) there's an upper limit on the number of pages you can hand in. Peter Nauer had the policy that if he received a report with more than that number of pages, he would simply refuse to read the last excess pages. * For every day a report was handed too late he would subtract one grade point. This led to complaints from the administration so the policy is now that overdue hand-ins are always marked as "failed". * Nauer didn't like spending too much time on lectures. He therefore tape-recorded them in advance and the lecture simply consisted of the tape being played and the students could ask/answer questions (sometimes rewinding the tape ) between themselves. He would then show up for 5 minutes at the end of the lecture to answer any remaining questions.

    12. Re:Datalogy by paradigm82 · · Score: 1

      Except in "Bioinformatic" (Bioinformatics) where it has the same meaning as in English (ie it refers to a combination of biochemistry and computer science).

  13. FAMOUS CONTROVERSY by putko · · Score: 1

    There is a famous controversy, described here:

    http://spirit.sourceforge.net/dl_docs/bnf.html

    Some accuse this guy of bogarting the credit.

    --
    http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
    1. Re:FAMOUS CONTROVERSY by Voltageaav · · Score: 1

      From TFA: John Backus, another former Turing Award winner, acknowledged Naur as the driving intellectual force behind the definition of Algol 60. He commented that Naur's editing of the Algol report and his comprehensive preparation for the January 1960 meeting in which Algol was presented "was the stuff that really made Algol 60 the language that it is, and it wouldn't have even come about, had he not done that."

      And from your own refrence, Naur says I don't know where BNF came from in the first place. I don't know -- surely BNF originally meant Backus Normal Form. I don't know who suggested it.

      Now, tell me, does that sound like he's trying to steal the credit?

      --
      Someone save me from this sanity.
    2. Re:FAMOUS CONTROVERSY by putko · · Score: 1

      No it doesn't. But then if you read this, it is clear tha his contribution sounds so minor as to be unworthy of further discussion -- he just wanted to change some unprintable characters to printable ones.

      In a later appendix, F. L. Bauer responds to Naur's statements:

              "It is amusing to see how Peter Naur looks at the use of the Backus notation from his personal point of view. Among [other members of the committee] there was no question that we would like... a form similar to the one Backus had used for its ICIP paper... If Peter Naur had seen this a result of his "plan" to make an appeal to the members of the ALGOL committee concerning the style of the language description, he was running into open doors."

              "... Peter Naur speaks of 'my slightly revised form of Backus's notation' and 'my slightly modified form of Backus's notation.' I think the minor notation difference is not worth mentioning. If some people speak of Backus- Naur form instead of the original Backus Normal Form, then they indicate that Peter Naur, as the editor of the ALGOL 60 report, brought this notation to a wide attention. Backus-ALGOL Form would be more appropriate anyhow."

      --
      http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
    3. Re:FAMOUS CONTROVERSY by paradigm82 · · Score: 1

      While you (and the text on the page you link to) seem to agree that Naur didn't try to steal any credit you both use a rather harsh tone like "contributions sounds so minor as to be unworthy of further discussion...". Nowehere did Naur claim to have invented BNF notation. He said he had done some slight modifications to it namely changing some unprintable characters to printable characters. And as you note, those changes are slight. But what's the problem? It isn't the changes he made to BNF that earned him a Turing award, it is his MANY OTHER contributions to Algol in particular and computer science in general. What you write is misleading in that it makes it appear as if the trivial changes discussed were his only contributions to Algol, which is - of course - false.

  14. Algol 60 Group by JehCt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting that Peter Naur is being recognized 40 years later, when another Algol team member, Alan Perlis, received the first Turing Award in 1966. Here's a photo of Perlis, Naur and the other Algol 1960 conference participants.

  15. Some contributions of Algol60 by Marc+Rochkind · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. The Report on the language used a formal syntax specification, one of the first, if not the first, to do so. Semantics were specfied with prose, however.
    2. There was a distinction between the publication language and the implementation language (those probably aren't the right terms). Among other things, it got around differences such as whether to use decimal points or commas in numeric constants.
    3. Designed by a committee, rather than a private company or government agency.
    4. Archetype of the so-called "Algol-like languages," examples of which are (were?) Pascal, PL./I, Algol68, Ada, C, and Java. (The term Algol-like languages is hardly used any more, since we have few examples of contemporary non-Algol-like languages.)

    However, as someone who actually programmed in it (on a Univac 1108 in 1972 or 1973), I can say that Algol60 was extremely difficult to use for anything real, since it lacked string processing, data structures, adequate control flow constructs, and separate compilation. (Or so I recall... it's been a while since I've read the Report.)

    1. Re:Some contributions of Algol60 by hritcu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > 1. The Report on the language used a formal syntax specification, one of the first, if not the first, to do so. Semantics were specfied with prose, however. Unfortunately this is the case with all programming languages (with the exception of standard ML).

      --
      If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
    2. Re:Some contributions of Algol60 by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1
      1. The Report on the language used a formal syntax specification, one of the first, if not the first, to do so. Semantics were specfied with prose, however.
      Unfortunately this is the case with all programming languages (with the exception of standard ML).

      Not all others -- for example, LISP 1.5 originally had its semantics defined in terms of actions taken by a LISP interpreter (written in LISP, of course).

      There have been a few more with formally defined semantics as well. SPARK and the current Scheme spec (R5RS) both have formally defined semantics. A few others are open to some question -- for example, the VLISP project did a formal definition of the semantics of Scheme, and then did a verified implementation. Unless I'm badly mistaken, that's what led to the formal semantics in the current Scheme spec. Whether VLISP qualified as its own language or not is open to some question though.

      Attempts have even been made for C. During the C standardization process, some work was done on a (non-normative) appendix defining its semantics formally as well, but this didn't make it into the standard. I don't know if the last version is still avaiable, but I believe it was based on this paper by Michael Norrish

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    3. Re:Some contributions of Algol60 by Darren+Bane · · Score: 1

      Just a nit, but Prolog (in Abstract State Machines) and Scheme (in denotational semantics) also have formal specifications. However, I agree that it's disappointing that so few languages (3 is still a tiny number) use such an approach.

      --
      Darren Bane
    4. Re:Some contributions of Algol60 by WGR · · Score: 1

      Algol 68 was formally defined by a transformation grammar on statements in the language. Semantics were defined by a Turing-machine like evolution of strings.

  16. life::= birth education career gods_waiting_room ; by hedley · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have been using his work for years. Congrats to him
    and his fantastic career.

    Hedley

  17. Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by packetmill · · Score: 0

    should go to the guy who invented Java.

    1. Re:Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by m50d · · Score: 1

      Given how much java makes me want to kill people, I don't think that's fair.

      --
      I am trolling
    2. Re:Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by NoMercy · · Score: 1

      Java alone isn't a great invention, it's a C style language with garbage collection, objects and compiles to a bytecode... all that's been done before.

      Now maybe the inventor of Java's reflection system...

    3. Re:Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      s/Java/C/;

      Fixed your post.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    4. Re:Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No way. Java sucks!

    5. Re:Nobel prize for peace[of mind] by packetmill · · Score: 1

      No. Java takes the object oriented paradigm to perfection. C is C, Java is Java. P.S The guy who gave me a -1 overrated should join the assholes-'R-US club.

  18. Danes everywhere... by weg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Amazing how many programming languages were actually invented by Danish computer scientists. Peter Naur (ALGOL), Bjarne Stroustrup (C++), Anders Hejlsberg (C#), and Mads Tofte contributed a good deal to SML.

    --
    Georg
    1. Re:Danes everywhere... by tomjen · · Score: 1

      As i recall it, Anders Hejlsberg was part of the team behind Delphi too.

      --
      Freedom or George Bush
    2. Re:Danes everywhere... by sidetracked · · Score: 4, Informative

      Anders Hejlsberg made Turbo Pascal as well. Also to name a few other Danes that created popular languages like Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) and David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails Framework).

    3. Re:Danes everywhere... by Krakhan · · Score: 1

      Don't forget about Djikstra!

    4. Re:Danes everywhere... by IWK · · Score: 1

      Dijkstra was Dutch

      http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/CSobit.html

      --
      Once in a while, I even pass the Turing-Test
    5. Re:Danes everywhere... by jlar · · Score: 1

      Not to mention Rasmus Lerdorf the Danish-Canadian author of PHP.

    6. Re:Danes everywhere... by olau · · Score: 1

      It's the Danish conspiracy. Eventually all computers will be programmed in a Danish programming language - then WORLD DOMINATION! Just wait till your defense systems start responding to the code that can be implicitly read between the lines...

    7. Re:Danes everywhere... by JesperJ · · Score: 1

      Why must you unveil our secret plans?!?!?!?!?!?

    8. Re:Danes everywhere... by sgt_doom · · Score: 1
      World Domination Society Official Message (format alpha alpha zeta):

      At 0700 today Killer Bots were dispatched to find and terminate "olau"

      End official message

    9. Re:Danes everywhere... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like multiple muslim country defense systems already have this capability in their image recognition software.

  19. Nobel Games by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    The Turing Award is considered to be the Nobel Prize of computing, and a well-deserved recognition of Dr. Naur's pioneering contributions to the field."

    Why the heck don't the Nobel managers make a fricken Computer category? They created a Economics category even though Mr. Nobel hadn't originally set that one up.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Nobel Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can assure you that real scientists regard the "Nobel Prize" in economics awarded by some Swedish bank, not the Nobel foundation, as a travesty.

      Kind of like economics is a travesty compared to physics or chemistry or even literature!

    2. Re:Nobel Games by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Nobel committee has not made any awards that Alfred Nobel himself did not decide to set up. Economics is not a real nobel prize- its official name is "The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel"- in other words its a rip off of the name. Quite fitting, given macroeconomics is a pseudo-science, that it be given a pseudo-award.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    3. Re:Nobel Games by proxima · · Score: 1

      Quite fitting, given macroeconomics is a pseudo-science, that it be given a pseudo-award.

      As you're probably aware, more than macroeconomists receive the "The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel". In fact, the 2005 prize went to two game theorists (and thus microeconomists). The debate about whether economics, or any subset of it, is a real "science" is not a very fruitful one (since one can define science in any number of ways, both including and excluding econ). I find it interesting (though not terribly surprising, since I've heard it before) that you separate macro from micro, rather than claiming all of econ is a pseudo-science (disclaimer: I am a PhD student in econ who will have macro as one field).

      The existence or lack of a Nobel prize is not really appropriate for use as some indicator of how important, or reliable, or [insert adjective here] a field is. After all, there is no Nobel prize in mathematics, and if some dramatically new field emerges that doesn't fit well within currently-established categories, a new "Bank of Sweden" prize might be created. Unless, of course, you believe that the original categories will always incorporate the only worthwhile pursuits of humanity.

      Economics is a much younger field than physical or biological sciences, and most of the field we study today was developed since Nobel's time. I'm no historian or biographer, so I couldn't say with any degree of authority whether Alfred Nobel, were he choosing the awards today, would choose economics or anything else as a category.

      --
      "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
    4. Re:Nobel Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The pretense of economists that it is a verifiable, repeatable, quantifiable discipline like physics is the bullshit causing the sort of comment that AuMatar posted. Come on, as much admirable field of study as it is, it's a social study, and no amount of statistics and brain-dead algebraic models (I've done my bit doing academic work in that area) is gonna make it into a science discipline that they envy, i.e. those fields that use the scientific method, because they can't use the method.

      Although, it's not French Literature, I give you that. :-)

    5. Re:Nobel Games by proxima · · Score: 1

      The pretense of economists that it is a verifiable, repeatable, quantifiable discipline like physics is the bullshit causing the sort of comment that AuMatar posted.

      I certainly agree that economists should be aware of the inherent drawbacks to the methods. It's true, most of economics does not involve experiments in the traditional sense (experimental economics is the exception, but there are certainly arguments about how the results there apply to the world at large). However, many other disciplines, some considered more scientific than others, are also unable to conduct experiments. In general, fields like astronomy, meteorology and paleontology are not based on experiments. Some of the methods used can be verified in the lab, just like statistical methods and "brain-dead algebraic models" used by economists can be proved with math. Of course, assumptions of some sort are required for the models (and even for statistics itself). The data, however, are not typically generated by experiment in these fields.

      I really have no problem with those who consider economics not a science. As I mentioned in my previous post, it depends largely on how you define science in the first place. For this reason I'm glad it's not referred to as "economic science", but that doesn't seem to stop this debate from coming up again and again. I also welcome informed criticisms as to the methods and data sources used by economists. This is how fields improve.

      Regardless of whether modern economic theory is doing a good job, individuals, businesses, and governments make economic choices constantly. Thus it seems worthwhile to pursue a better understanding of economic issues in the hope of improving those decisions (or, at the very least, better understanding why things happened in the past). Economics is useful in the sense that it can provide actual falsifiable predictions about quantitative phenomena. Whether this is sufficient to classify economics as a science really doesn't change anything, in my view.

      --
      "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
    6. Re:Nobel Games by AuMatar · · Score: 1
      Why I separate micro from macro- a lot of micro stuff can be tested according to principles of the scientific method. Little to none of the macro stuff can. Not to mention the large swaths of macroeconomics that point to opposite results, depending on the political leanings of the economist who designed it. Trying to get two economists to agree on a macro issue is almost impossible. If it was a real science, at least the basics would be known, tested, and proven by now.

      The existence or lack of a Nobel prize is not really appropriate for use as some indicator of how important, or reliable, or [insert adjective here] a field is.


      Agreed. I have high respect for both the Turing Award and the Field's Medal. Note that neither of them call themselves the Nobel Prize. The economics prize does- its a blatant attempt to horn in on the good name of the real Nobel prize. Although I do find it funny when economists try and rationalize that.
      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    7. Re:Nobel Games by proxima · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Trying to get two economists to agree on a macro issue is almost impossible. If it was a real science, at least the basics would be known, tested, and proven by now.

      I'll grant that there are many conflicting models in macro. Many of them stem from the assumptions. For example, assuming a closed economy or an open economy. In the real world and throughout history, various countries are somewhere in between, but often closer to one or the other. Thus, choosing appropriate assumptions for the question you're asking is very important.

      Beyond that, macro is very, very new. Physics had centuries from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein. The point is we can gather data and test these models for their effectiveness. Some of them work, and they tend to persist, and some of them don't (but again, choosing which model is appropriate for which data is very important). Besides, if you're a big fan of micro, there's a huge trend in macro to have the models based on micro foundations. Regarding economics as a science, see my other post in this thread.

      Even if you don't like certain aggregate variables (GDP, etc), some macroeconomic variables are decided in the real world regardless (how much money to print, what interest rate the Fed sets). Macroeconomics will always exist in that sense. There's certainly plenty of room for improvement in the collection of data (especially of non-OECD countries), but that's true of micro as well.

      Agreed. I have high respect for both the Turing Award and the Field's Medal. Note that neither of them call themselves the Nobel Prize.

      Neither of them are decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. I wouldn't mind if everyone called it the Nobel Memorial Prize or something to that effect. If it didn't exist, there would probably be some "top prize" similar to the Field's Medal or Turing Award, and that'd be fine too (there probably was before 1968).

      --
      "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
    8. Re:Nobel Games by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Agreed. A lot of "soft sciences" are important and necessary. Just because something is difficult to test with the scientific process does not mean that one should not try. Those who come up with good ideas, models, or techniques in the field should be awarded something prestigious, even if they turn out to be wrong. Sometimes much is learned from knowing why a model is wrong. you cannot tweak an economic model to match reality unless you first have something to tweak.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  20. The Algols were good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Although you were making a joke, it didn't actually reflect reality at all. Algol 60 was quite seminal, and Algol 68 was almost the "Perl" of its time, really powerful.

    In almost 40 years since the Algol family of languages was defined, we haven't really moved things along all that much. Quite a lot of the "improvements" in modern languages are not fundamental but largely aesthetic. Pretty pathetic really.

    Nearly 4 decades ago, we programmed in Algol 68 and we walked on the moon. It's curious how the pace of progress in both realms slackened off quite suddenly, to put it generously.

    1. Re:The Algols were good by zippthorne · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      In what year did the concept of "risk management" as an organisational paradigm/department become popular?

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  21. How is volume IV coming along ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > I'm about 90% of the speed writing in asm than I am in C++.

    Hi, Don !

    How is volume IV coming along ?

  22. Politics of Prizes & Other Thoughts by reporter · · Score: 1, Informative
    The prize was quite belated, but fortunately, Peter Naur received it before he died. The reason for the unreasonable delay is that prizes are political. The person DEF who receives the "right" support and the "right" letter of commendation from the "right" people has a much better chance of receiving a prize (from IEEE, ACM, Seymour Cray Engineering Award Committee, etc.) than the person GHI who receives no such support even though person GHI's achievement is more scientifically amazing than person DEF's achievement.

    Take the example of John Hennessy. What exactly did he accomplish apart from what his graduate students developed? Yet, through politics, he was able to transform his students' work into his own success. He received the Seymour Cray Engineering Award and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.

    Returning to ALGOL 60, its syntax has been used as the de-facto standard for describing computer algorithms from 1960 to 1990. ALGOL is inspiration behind Pascal. Further, ALGOL is the first computer language to be designed by actual computer scientists instead of hackers.

    I am glad that justice prevailed even though it was belated. Peter earned a prize that was actually well deserved. His ALGOL 60 was key milestone in the development of computer science.

    Unfortunately, Gary Kildall did not receive the prize that he deserved while he was alive. William Gates buried him -- figuratively and literally. The Software Publishers Association gave Kildall an award after he died.

    1. Re:Politics of Prizes & Other Thoughts by jcr · · Score: 1

      Take the example of John Hennessy. What exactly did he accomplish apart from what his graduate students developed? Yet, through politics, he was able to transform his students' work into his own success.

      On what, exactly, do you base this charge?

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Politics of Prizes & Other Thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Literally"... I do not think this word means what you think it means.

  23. Homer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mmmmm. ...Danish

  24. Honest question from curious geek- by Josh+teh+Jenius · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just read the WikiPedia article on Alan Turing:

    In 1952, Turing was convicted of acts of gross indecency after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man in Manchester. He was placed on probation and required to undergo hormone therapy. When Alan Turing died in 1954, an inquest found that he had committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

    Then the article mentions an urban legend:

    In the book, Zeroes and Ones, author Sadie Plant speculates that the rainbow Apple logo with a bite taken out of it was an homage to Turing. This seems to be an urban legend as the Apple logo was designed in 1976, two years before Gilbert Baker's rainbow pride flag.

    Urban Legend? Anyone have any more info on this?

    In case you haven't seen it in a while, here is the classic Apple logo:
    http://www.jeb.be/images/Apple/apple_logo_(640x480 ).jpg.

    --
    Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
    1. Re:Honest question from curious geek- by solitas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The original Apple logo: http://203.151.217.14/databases/d0002/images/logo1 .jpg

      --
      "It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
    2. Re:Honest question from curious geek- by bensch128 · · Score: 1

      Thats amazing...

      Sounds more like an urban legand then fact though...
      Probably only Woz and Steve Jobs knows for sure though

      Ben

    3. Re:Honest question from curious geek- by bj8rn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google provides the answer: "For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up. I just stared at the wedges for hours," recalls Janoff. The fruit of his labor: a simple 2-D monochromatic apple, with a healthy bite taken from the right side. Jobs loved the conceit-only he suggested it be more colorful. Janoff's boss disagreed, insisting the logo be made all black to save on printing costs. "But Jobs was resolute, arguing that color was the key to humanizing the company," says Janoff. "So I just put colors where I thought they should be, not even thinking about a prism."

      --
      Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
    4. Re:Honest question from curious geek- by typical · · Score: 1

      In 1952, Turing was convicted of acts of gross indecency after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man in Manchester. He was placed on probation and required to undergo hormone therapy. When Alan Turing died in 1954, an inquest found that he had committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

      1954: Gay-bashing sets back computer science by years.

      And this from a country where his cryptography work during War War II had saved we-can-only-guess-how-many lives of his countrymen.

      Sad.

      --
      Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
    5. Re:Honest question from curious geek- by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1
      Apologies for wheeling out my favourite quote:

      "Fortunately the authorities did not know that Turing was a homosexual. Otherwise we might have lost the war."

      -- Jack Good (Bletchley Park)

  25. From TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "...Before publication of the Algol 60 Report, computer languages were informally defined by their prose manuals and the compiler code itself..."

    The definition of PERL. :-) Have a good weekend.

    1. Re:From TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't forget ruby and python

  26. Re:life::= birth education career gods_waiting_roo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BNF was not his work.

  27. Naur denies having contributed to BNF by MarkoNo5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Naur himself denies having invented BNF together with Backus. According to himself, it is the Backus Normal Form. Other people put his name in it.

  28. Wait, Turing? Not Turino? by wuie · · Score: 1

    Wow, for a moment there, I thought that they introduced Programming as an Olympic Event in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. :o

  29. My theory? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Danes are tall, imposing, and they left enunciation behind with the middle ages.

    Basically, no one on the team knows what they're saying, so they can't be sure what they never said - thus, combined with their aloof manner, it gives the illusion they're the ones who figured it all out.

  30. Literally buried him? by Burb · · Score: 1
    William Gates buried him -- figuratively and literally

    Not unless Bill was there on the day with a shovel in his hand.

    --