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John W. Backus Dies at 82; Developed FORTRAN

Posted by kdawson on from the go-to-considered-seminal dept.

A number of readers let us know of the passing of John W. Backus, who assembled a team to develop FORTRAN at IBM in the 1950s. It was the first widely used high-level language. Backus later worked on a "function-level" programming language, FP, which was described in his Turing Award lecture "Can Programming be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?" and is viewed as Backus's apology for creating FORTRAN. He received the 1977 ACM Turing Award "for profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for seminal publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages."

5 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wow. by Mikachu · · Score: -1, Troll

    I may be a jerk, but at least I didn't invent FORTRAN.

    ...

    Okay, okay, I'll leave now. :D

  2. What do you know? by SirGarlon · · Score: 0, Troll

    Psh, he developed FORTRAN. I'm surprised he even lived to 82 without being killed by a rabid programmer. ;) You disparage Mr. Backus's accomplishments for some cheap laughs, but could accomplish anything better? Do you even know how to code in FORTRAN?
    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  3. GOTO considered harmful by tedgyz · · Score: 0, Troll

    Finally, proof that GOTO is harmful. Death.

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
  4. Re:Also known for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "American icon"? You make me puke. If he had been from, say, Russia, would you have said "truly a Russian icon" now? Of course not; you're just using this as an opportunity to pat yourself and your buddies on the back, and it's disgusting and shameful that you'd abuse the news of his death for that.

  5. Too bad... by FunkyELF · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...Too bad FORTRAN didn't die first.