John Backus
John W. Backus ( John Warner Backus, born December 3, 1924 in Philadelphia, † March 17, 2007 in Ashland, Oregon ) was one of the pioneers of computer science. He was head of the development team of Fortran, the first ( actually realized ) high-level programming language. With Peter Naur together, he developed named after them Backus -Naur Form, a notation for describing formal languages . He conducted research in the field of functional programming and helped to spread this programming paradigm on.
Life
John Backus was the son of German immigrants. His father was a chemist who improved the design accurate thermometer in Germany. With the measurement technology for the production of nitroglycerin he was wealthy.
Training
Backus Jr. graduated from high school without much zeal, after which he first studied chemistry at the University of Virginia, which, however, he dropped out and undertook in the U.S. Army. There he was delegated to study medicine. During an internship in neurosurgery, surprisingly, a brain tumor was found in him, but that could be successfully removed surgically. First, a metal plate on the skullcap he was einoperiert, after nine months of medical school he left them so become dissatisfied, replace it with a new disk. After moving to New York City, he was trained as a radio technician and discovered his interest in mathematics. Backus graduated in 1949 his studies of mathematics at Columbia University with a master 's degree.
Shortly before finishing his studies Backus visited the IBM headquarters in New York's Madison Avenue. After spontaneous questioning by staff, which he later described as oral exams, he was hired on the spot as a programmer since 1950. At that time there were no high-level languages , it has been consistently programmed in assembly language.
Fortran
Backus was dissatisfied with this state of the computer science and wanted to make programming easier. In 1953 he received from IBM permission to put together a team to explore advanced programming methods. The result of these efforts was a translator for Fortran, which was published in 1957. Fortran was the first high-level language with the formal languages and thus the first representative of what is now commonly meant by a programming language. The language allowed for the first time non- specialists in computer programming, to use computers to solve for specific problems, and was therefore of particular interest to scientists and engineers.
In 1959, Backus the original form of the Backus -Naur form, a meta-language for representation of context-free grammars. Backus wanted to 58 describe the recently published programming language Algol formal. That same year, Peter Naur modified, head of the project group Algol 60, the meta-language, which is why it bears the name of both developers today.
1977 Backus received the Turing Award for his contributions to the design of high-level languages , in particular for his work on FORTRAN and the Backus -Naur Form. In a memorable lecture titled Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs at the presentation of Turing Awards recommended Backus turning towards the paradigm of functional programming. Again, the goal was the programmer to facilitate the daily work, this time by turning to a programming style that is based on mathematical functions instead of the hitherto prevailing imperative programming. With FP and FL he developed himself relevant functional programming languages.
Private life
John Backus retired in 1991 completely from the world of computer science and devoted himself intensively to the religious teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Eva Pierrakos.
A first marriage to Marjorie Jamison was divorced. He is survived by his daughters Karen and Paula Backus and his brother Cecil Backus, his second wife, Barbara Stannard died 2004.
Quotes
" Most scientists are scientists because they are afraid of life. It is wonderful to be inventive in science, in a framework in which one does not have to bother with people and relationships suffer. It's beautiful out there in the aseptic world in which there is no pain. But at some point you have to look in his heart and conquer fear. There are no programs and no particularly good theories. "