1. John Backus John Backus. Table of Contents. Back to Table of Contents. III Trivia. JohnBackus was born on December 3, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~mbsclass/hall_of_fame/backus.htm

John Backus Table of Contents I Claim to Fame II Research/Career Highlights III Trivia IV Bibliography I Claim to Fame John's most celebrated accomplishment is the supervision of the development of the Fortran language. Fortran was the first high level programming language to be developed, and the concepts have been copied numerous times in the development of other programming languages. Upon the completion of his work on the Fortran project, John recognized that everyday grammar is not sufficient to coherently explain the syntax of a programming language. With the assistance of Peter Naur, he derived a context free grammar, BNF notation , that gained popularity by explaining the syntax of the Algol language. However, John was still dissatisfied with the von Neumann style of programming, which Fortran follows. In his Turing Award Lecture, "Can Programming be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?", he presents the idea that program languages should allow the programmer to state what should happen without worrying about how the computer should implement it. This idea led to his development of

2. John Backus John Backus. Left photo from 9. The caption reads "John Backus, leader of the group which developed FORTRAN, was an early SSEC programmer." http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/backus.html

John Backus Left photo: from [ ]. The caption reads: "John Backus, leader of the group which developed FORTRAN, was an early SSEC programmer." After serving in the US Army in World War II, Backus received his BS in mathematics from Columbia's School of General Studies in 1949 (and, I believe, he also earned a Columbia Masters, year unknown). He worked at IBM Watson Lab at Columbia University from 1950 to 1952, and went on to lead IBM's Programming Research Group, and was honored as an IBM Fellow in 1963. Besides FORTRAN, Backus also developed BNF (Backus Normal Form or Backus Naur Form, an application of Noam Chomsky 's generative grammar to formal computer languages), the language that is used to formally describe computer languages, and was principal author of the Algol 60 Revised Report. He retired in 1991. Selected Publications: Backus, John W., "The IBM 701 Speedcoding System", IBM, New York (10 Sep 1953), 4pp. Backus, John W., "The IBM Speedcoding System", The Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery , Vol.1 No.1 (Jan 1954), pp.4-6.

3. ACM: A.M. Turing Award / John Backus John Backus. Citation For profound, influential, and lasting contributionsto the design of practical highlevel programming systems http://www.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/backus.html

John Backus Citation 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. ACM/A.M. Turing Award. Last Update: February 5, 1999 HOME ABOUT ACM MEMBERSHIP PUBLICATIONS ... Association for Computing Machinery

4. Backus John Warner Backus. John Backus spent his first years in Wilmington,Delaware and attended the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Backus.html

John Warner Backus Born: 3 Dec 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Click the picture above to see a larger version Show birthplace location Previous (Chronologically) Next Biographies Index Previous (Alphabetically) Next Main index John Backus spent his first years in Wilmington, Delaware and attended the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1942 although according to his own account he did not take his studies at Hill School too seriously:- I flunked out every year. I never studied. I hated studying. I was just goofing around. It had the delightful consequence that every year I went to summer school in New Hampshire where I spent the summer sailing and having a nice time. He entered the University of Virginia to study chemistry at his father's request. However he was no more diligent than at school and in 1943 his studies were terminated. That year he joined the army. In the army he took medical training, working in an Atlantic City hospital in a neurosurgery ward that treated head wounds. Strangely he was found to have a bone tumour and had a plate fitted in his head. A medical training seemed to be the right direction for Backus but after nine months of medical school he gave this up too:- I hated it. They don't like thinking in medical school. They memorize - that's all they want you to do. You must not think.

5. John Backus - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia John Backus. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Backus (bornDecember 3, 1924) is an American computer scientist, notable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Backus

John Backus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Backus (born December 3 ) is an American computer scientist , notable as the inventor of the Fortran programming language , the first high-level language to achieve widespread use, and the Backus-Naur form almost universally used to define language syntax . He received a Turing Award in for these two seminal achievements. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but grew up in Wilmington, Delaware . He studied at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania , and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry , and failing that, he then joined the US Army and began medical training, which he also dropped out of after nine months. After moving to New York City he initially took training as a radio technician and discovered an interest in mathematics . He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in the topic in , and joined IBM in . During his first three years, he worked on the SSEC ; his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the Moon The difficulties of programming were acute, and in

6. John Backus - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia John Backus. (Redirected from John W. Backus). John Backus (born December3, 1924) is an American computer scientist, notable as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Backus

John Backus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Redirected from John W. Backus John Backus (born December 3 ) is an American computer scientist , notable as the inventor of the Fortran programming language , the first high-level language to achieve widespread use, and the Backus-Naur form almost universally used to define language syntax . He received a Turing Award in for these two seminal achievements. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but grew up in Wilmington, Delaware . He studied at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania , and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry , and failing that, he then joined the US Army and began medical training, which he also dropped out of after nine months. After moving to New York City he initially took training as a radio technician and discovered an interest in mathematics . He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in the topic in , and joined IBM in . During his first three years, he worked on the SSEC ; his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the Moon The difficulties of programming were acute, and in

7. DBLP: John Backus John Backus. List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server FAQ 2001.2, John Backus Funding the Computing Revolution s Third Wave. Commun. http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Backus:John.html

John Backus List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server FAQ Ask others: ACM DL ACM Guide CiteSeer CSB ... Google John Backus: Funding the Computing Revolution's Third Wave. Commun. ACM 44 John Backus: The Algebra of Functional Programs: Function Level Reasoning, Linear Equations, and Extended Definitions. ICFPC 1981 DBLP: [ Home Author Title Conferences ... Michael Ley (ley@uni-trier.de) Fri May 28 13:12:35 2004

8. John Backus John Backus. John Backus (born December 3, 1924) is an American computerscientist, notable as the inventor of the Fortran programming http://www.fact-index.com/j/jo/john_backus.html

Main Page See live article Alphabetical index John Backus John Backus (born December 3 ) is an American computer scientist , notable as the inventor of the Fortran programming language , the first high-level language to achieve widespread use, and the Backus-Naur form almost universally used to define language syntax . He received a Turing Award in for these two seminal achievements. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but grew up in Wilmington, Delaware . He studied at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania , and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry , and failing that, he then joined the US Army and began medical training, which he also dropped out of after nine months. After moving to New York City he initially took training as a radio technician and discovered an interest in mathematics . He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in the topic in , and joined IBM in . During his first three years, he worked on the SSEC; his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the moon The difficulties of programming were acute, and in

9. John Backus - Encyclopedia Article About John Backus. Free Access, No Registrati encyclopedia article about John Backus. John Backus in Free online Englishdictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia. Provides John Backus. Word http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/John Backus

Dictionaries: General Computing Medical Legal Encyclopedia John Backus Word: Word Starts with Ends with Definition John Backus (born December 3 December 3 is the 337th day (338th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 28 days remaining. Events 1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state 1828 - U.S. presidential election, 1828: Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected President of the United States. 1901 - US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". Click the link for more information. Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s - Years: 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 - Events January 21 - Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership. January 22 - Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister. Click the link for more information. ) is an American For other uses see United States (disambiguation) The United States of America U.S.A.

10. John W. Backus - Encyclopedia Article About John W. Backus. Free Access, No Regi encyclopedia article about John W. Backus. John W. Backus in Free onlineEnglish dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia. John W. Backus. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/John W. Backus

Dictionaries: General Computing Medical Legal Encyclopedia John W. Backus Word: Word Starts with Ends with Definition John Backus (born December 3 December 3 is the 337th day (338th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 28 days remaining. Events 1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state 1828 - U.S. presidential election, 1828: Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected President of the United States. 1901 - US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". Click the link for more information. Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s - Years: 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 - Events January 21 - Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership. January 22 - Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister. Click the link for more information. ) is an American For other uses see United States (disambiguation) The United States of America U.S.A.

11. John Backus John backus john Backus () was/is een informaticus die in 1979 de Turing Award heeftgekregen en wiens naam voortleeft in de term BackusNaur Form (BNF), een http://www.guajara.com/wiki/nl/wikipedia/j/jo/john_backus.html

Guajara in other languages: Spanish Deutsch English French ... Italian John Backus John Backus Turing Award heeft gekregen en wiens naam voortleeft in de term Backus-Naur Form (BNF), een formele manier om de syntax van computertalen te beschrijven. Wikipedia - Alle tekst op deze pagina valt onder de GNU FDL licentie. Tagoror dot com Legal Information Contact us

12. Backus JOHN BACKUS a restless inventor. We didn t know what we wanted and how todo it. It just sort of grew. John Backus on the invention of FORTRAN. http://www.cs.nyu.edu/cs/faculty/shasha/outofmind/backus.html

JOHN BACKUS: a restless inventor We didn't know what we wanted and how to do it. It just sort of grew. The first struggle was over what the language would look like. Then how to parse expressions - it was a big problem and what we did looks astonishingly clumsy now.... John Backus on the invention of FORTRAN Necessity, says the adage, is the mother of invention. Yet some inventors are motivated less by necessity than by sheer irritation at the messiness or inefficiency of the way things are. John Backus is such an inventor. He played an inspirational role in three great creations: FORTRAN, the first high level programming language; Backus-Naur Form, which provides a way to describe grammatical rules for high level languages; and lastly a functional programming language called FP, which advocates a mathematical approach to programming. Today, each of his inventions drives research and commercial agendas throughout the planet. Yet Backus's own life is one of restless energy - from his youth through his retirement. A distaste for inefficiency seems to run in the family. Before World War I, Backus's father had risen from a modest background to the post of chief chemist for the Atlas Powder Company, a manufacturer of nitroglycerine to be used in explosives. His promotion came for good reason.

13. John Backus John Backus. Inventor of the FortranLanguage and the BackusNaurForm. JOHN BACKUSa restless inventor We didn t know what we wanted and how to do it. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JohnBackus

14. John Backus - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia John Backus. John Backus (born 1924), computer scientist, inventor of theFortran programming language developed at IBM for the 704 computer. http://www.phatnav.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=John_Backus

15. Computer History Museum - 1998 Fellow Award Recipient, John Backus John Backus (1924 1998 Fellow Award Recipient For his development of FORTRAN,contributions to computer systems theory and software project management. http://www.computerhistory.org/events/hall_of_fellows/backus/

John Backus (1924- 1998 Fellow Award Recipient For his development of FORTRAN, contributions to computer systems theory and software project management. John Backus led a team at IBM in 1957 that created the first successful high-level programming language, FORTRAN. It was designed to solve problems in science and engineering, and many dialects of the language are still in use throughout the world. Describing the development of FORTRAN, Backus said "We simply made up the language as we went along. We did not regard language design as a difficult problem, merely a simple prelude to the real problem: designing a compiler which could produce efficient programs...We also wanted to eliminate a lot of the bookkeeping and detailed, repetitive planning which hand coding involved." The name FORTRAN comes from FORmula TRANslation. The language was designed for solving engineering and scientific problems. FORTRAN IV was first introduced by IBM in the early 1960s and still exists in a number of similar dialects on machines from various manufacturers. Hall of Fellows About the Museum Exhibits Collections ... Site Map 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043 Ph 650-810-1010

16. John Backus John Backus. John Backus (narozený Prosinec 3, 1924) je American vedecpocítace, pozoruhodný jak vynálezce Fortran programovací http://wikipedia.infostar.cz/j/jo/john_backus.html

švodn­ str¡nka Tato str¡nka v origin¡le John Backus John Backus (narozen½ Prosinec 3 ) je Američan vědec poč­tače , pozoruhodn½ jak vyn¡lezce Fortran programovac­ jazyk , prvn­ vysokoºrovňov½ jazyk dos¡hnout rozÅ¡­Å™en©ho použ­v¡n­, a Backus-Naur forma t©měř vÅ¡eobecně použit½ definovat jazyk syntax . On přj­mal Turing cena v pro tyto dva kl­Äov© ºspěchy. Backus byl narozen½ v Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ale vyrostl v Wilmington, Delaware . On se učil na kopci Å¡kola v Pottstown, Pennsylvania , a byl zřejmě ne piln½ student. Pot©, co se zařez¡val Univerzita Virginie ke studiu chemie , a nedostatek to, on pak spojen½ N¡s arm¡da a začal zdravotnick© Å¡kolen­, kter½ on tak© vypadl z po dev­ti měs­c­ch. Pot©, co stěhoval se do New York on zpoč¡tku se ujal cvičit jak r¡dio technician a zjistil z¡jem v matematika . On absolvoval Columbia univerzita s titulem v t©matu v , a spojen½ IBM v . Během jeho nejprve tři roky, on pracoval na SSEC; jeho prvn­ velk½ projekt byl napsat program rozpoč­tat si pozice měs­c Pot­Å¾e programov¡n­ byly akutn­, a v

17. John Backus - Encyclopedia: Article And Reference Information You are here Encyclopedia John backus john Backus. John Backus (bornDecember 3, 1924) is an American computer scientist, notable http://encyclopedia.ekist.de/j/jo/john_backus.html

Anthropology Architecture Archaeology Biology ... See live article You are here: Encyclopedia > John Backus John Backus John Backus (born December 3 ) is an American computer scientist , notable as the inventor of the Fortran programming language, the first high-level language to achieve widespread use, and the Backus-Naur form almost universally used to define language syntax . He received a Turing Award in for these two seminal achievements. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but grew up in Wilmington, Delaware . He studied at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry , and failing that, he then joined the US Army and began medical training, which he also dropped out of after nine months. After moving to New York City he initially took training as a radio technician and discovered an interest in mathematics . He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in the topic in , and joined IBM in . During his first three years, he worked on the SSEC; his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the moon The difficulties of programming were acute, and in

18. John Backus - Namibia Internet Gateway - Namibia Link To The Internet John Backus. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Sponsored Links These peoplehelp to keep this site online. Namibian Sites, Medical Sites, Medications. http://www.namweb.com.na/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=John_Backus

19. Original Set Of Invitees Alan Perlis Allen Newell Amir Pnueli Karp Donald E. Knuth EF Codd Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Edward Feigenbaum Fernando J.Corbato Herb Simon Ivan Sutherland JH Wilkinson John backus john Cocke John http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~musser/gp/traversals/list1.txt

Original set of invitees: Alan Perlis Allen Newell Amir Pnueli Butler W. Lampson C. Anthony R. Hoare Charles W. Bachman Dana Scott Dennis Ritchie Dick Karp Donald E. Knuth E.F. Codd Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Edward Feigenbaum Fernando J. Corbato' Herb Simon Ivan Sutherland J.H. Wilkinson John Backus John Cocke John Hopcroft John McCarthy Juris Hartmanis Ken Iverson Ken Thompson Manuel Blum Marvin Minsky Maurice Wilkes Michael O. Rabin Niklaus Wirth Raj Reddy Richard Hamming Richard Stearns Robert E. Tarjan Robert W. Floyd Robin Milner Stephen Cook William (Velvel) Kahan Output during complete traversal: Alan Perlis Allen Newell Amir Pnueli Butler W. Lampson C. Anthony R. Hoare C.L. Pekeris Charles W. Bachman Dana Scott Alonzo Church Dennis Ritchie Dick Karp Donald E. Knuth E.F. Codd Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Aad van Wijngaarden Edward Feigenbaum Fernando J. Corbato' Herb Simon Ivan Sutherland Claude Shannon Frank Hitchcock J.H. Wilkinson John Backus John Cocke John H. Holland Arthur Banks John Hopcroft John McCarthy Juris Hartmanis Ken Iverson Howard Aiken E.L. Chaffee Ken Thompson Manuel Blum Marshall Hall Marvin Minsky Albert Tucker Maurice Wilkes Michael O. Rabin Niklaus Wirth Norman Biezeno Oswald Veblen E.H. Moore H.A. Newton Oystein Ore Patrick Fischer Hartley Rogers R.L. Matson R.P. Dilworth Raj Reddy Richard Hamming Richard Stearns Harold Kuhn Ralph Fox Robert E. Tarjan Robert W. Floyd Robin Milner Solomon Lefschetz Stephen Cook Hao Wang Thor Skolem Axel Thue Tony Oettinger William (Velvel) Kahan William Edward Story Carl Gottfried Neumann Final set of invitees: Aad van Wijngaarden Alan Perlis Albert Tucker Allen Newell Alonzo Church Amir Pnueli Arthur Banks Axel Thue Butler W. Lampson C. Anthony R. Hoare C.L. Pekeris Carl Gottfried Neumann Charles W. Bachman Claude Shannon Dana Scott Dennis Ritchie Dick Karp Donald E. Knuth E.F. Codd E.H. Moore E.L. Chaffee Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Edward Feigenbaum Fernando J. Corbato' Frank Hitchcock H.A. Newton Hao Wang Harold Kuhn Hartley Rogers Herb Simon Howard Aiken Ivan Sutherland J.H. Wilkinson John Backus John Cocke John H. Holland John Hopcroft John McCarthy Juris Hartmanis Ken Iverson Ken Thompson Manuel Blum Marshall Hall Marvin Minsky Maurice Wilkes Michael O. Rabin Niklaus Wirth Norman Biezeno Oswald Veblen Oystein Ore Patrick Fischer R.L. Matson R.P. Dilworth Raj Reddy Ralph Fox Richard Hamming Richard Stearns Robert E. Tarjan Robert W. Floyd Robin Milner Solomon Lefschetz Stephen Cook Thor Skolem Tony Oettinger William (Velvel) Kahan William Edward Story

20. John Backus biographies of computer pioneers in the history of computing john backus. December 3 1924, Philadelphia, Pensylvania, USA. john backus As projectleader with IBM john backus developed in the http://www.thocp.net/biographies/backus_john.htm

John Backus December 3 1924, Philadelphia, Pensylvania, USA John Backus principal papers Backus-Naur form, Fortran hardware SSEC software FORTRAN keywords fortran see also Achievement As projectleader with IBM John Backus developed in the early 1950's with his team: Fortran - Formula Translator. The first high level programming language. This language is most widely used in physics and engineering. He was also responsible for the Backus-Naur Form (or BNF), a standard notation which can be used to decribe the sytanx of a computer language in a formal and unambiguous way. Biography John Backus was born in Philadelphia in 1924, and grew up near there in Wilmington, Delaware. His family was wealthy, and Backus attended the prestigious Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He was not a good student, and his years at the Hill School were marked by a series of failures. Poor grades and attendance record notwithstanding, Backus graduated from the Hill School in 1942 and entered the University of Virginia. His father, at one time a chemist, wanted him to major in chemistry. Backus did study chemistry for awhile, and enjoyed the theoretical aspects of the science, but he disliked the lab work. By the end of his second semester, his class attendance fell to once a week, and school authorities expelled him. He joined the Army in 1942.

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