John Backus
American computer scientist (1924–2007)
John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language. He was the inventor of the Backus–Naur form (BNF).[1]
John Backus | |
|---|---|
 Backus in December 1989 | |
| Born | John Warner Backus December 3, 1924 |
| Died | March 17, 2007 (aged 82) |
| Alma mater | University of Virginia Columbia University (B.S. 1949, M.S. 1950) |
| Known for | Speedcoding FORTRAN ALGOL Backus–Naur form Function-level programming |
| Awards | National Medal of Science (1975) ACM Turing Award (1977) Charles Stark Draper Prize (1993) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | IBM |
He received the National Medal of Science in 1975[2] and the 1977 ACM Turing Award.[3]
References
change- ↑ "W. Wallace McDowell Award". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved April 15, 2008.
- ↑ "The President's National Medal of Science: John Backus". National Science Foundation. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved March 21, 2007.
- ↑ "ACM Turing Award Citation: John Backus". Association for Computing Machinery. Archived from the original on February 4, 2007. Retrieved March 22, 2007.
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