ZDNet: Fortran founder John Backus dies
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John Backus
John Warner Backus was an American computer scientist. He led the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Backus–Naur form (BNF), a widely used notation to define syntaxes of formal languages. He also contributed to the design of ALGOL, and later researched the function-level programming paradigm, presenting hi…
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science · American computer scientist (1924–2007) · mathematician · computer scientist · also John Backus, John Warner Backus, John W. Backus, Backus
Born 3 December 1924 · Died 17 March 2007 · Q92746
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2007· 5 entries
Seattle Times: John Backus, computing pioneer, dies at 82
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Seattle Times: John Backus, developer of Fortran, dies at 82
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Died 2007-03-17.
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“Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701 (an early computer), writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs.”
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2004· 1 entry
Awarded Programming Languages Achievement Award (2004).
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1997· 2 entries
Awarded Computer History Museum Fellow (1997).
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“for his development of FORTRAN, contributions to computer systems theory and software project management.”
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1993· 1 entry
Awarded Charles Stark Draper Prize (1993).
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1989· 1 entry
Awarded honorary doctorate of the Henri Poincaré University (1989).
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1985· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985).
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1984· 1 entry
Awarded IRI Achievement Award (1984).
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1983· 1 entry
Awarded Harold Pender Award (1983).
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1977· 1 entry
Awarded Turing Award (1977).
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1975· 2 entries
Won National Medal of Science (1975).
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And 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 publication of formal procedures
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1967· 1 entry
Awarded W. Wallace McDowell Award (1967).
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1963· 1 entry
Awarded IBM Fellow (1963).
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1954· 1 entry
Backus assembled a team to define and develop Fortran for the IBM 704 computer
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1953· 1 entry
Backus developed the language Speedcoding, the first high-level language created for an IBM computer, to aid in software development for the IBM 701 computer
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1950· 1 entry
Studied at Columbia University, master's degree (1946–1950).
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1949· 1 entry
And a master's degree in 1950, both in mathematics, and joined IBM in 1950
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1943· 1 entry
Studied at University of Virginia (1942–1943).
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1942· 1 entry
Studied at The Hill School (1942).
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1924· 1 entry
Born 1924-12-03.
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