John Backus

American computer scientist (1924–2007) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Backus

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]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...
John Backus
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Backus in December 1989
Born
John Warner Backus

(1924-12-03)December 3, 1924
DiedMarch 17, 2007(2007-03-17) (aged 82)
Alma materUniversity of Virginia
Columbia University (B.S. 1949, M.S. 1950)
Known forSpeedcoding
FORTRAN
ALGOL
Backus–Naur form
Function-level programming
AwardsNational Medal of Science (1975)
ACM Turing Award (1977)
Charles Stark Draper Prize (1993)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsIBM
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He received the National Medal of Science in 1975[2] and the 1977 ACM Turing Award.[3]

References

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