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John Backus
Computer scientist

John Backus

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Leading the IBM team that created FORTRAN.

FORTRAN · Backus–Naur form

Born
3 December 1924
Birthplace
Philadelphia, United States
Died
17 March 2007

More people

Ada LovelaceRecognising what a programmable machine could do beyond arithmetic.Alan TuringHelping break Enigma and laying foundations for computer science.Grace HopperHelping make computer programming readable in English-like language.

John Backus

John Backus helped make programming more accessible and developed influential ways to describe programming languages.

Early life

An indirect route

Tried chemistry, engineering and medicine before settling on mathematics.

Columbia degrees

Completed mathematics degrees in 1949 and 1950.

Career

  1. 1950

    Joined IBM

    Began programming the company’s early electronic computers.

  2. 1953

    Language development

    Started the project that produced FORTRAN.

  3. 1991

    Retirement

    Concluded a 41-year career at IBM.

Contributions

FORTRAN

Allowed mathematical calculations to be expressed in a high-level language.

Backus–Naur form

Helped establish a precise notation for language syntax.

Function-level programming

His Turing lecture proposed a different approach to program construction.

Beyond computing

Radio training

Studied radio technology after wartime service, before pursuing university mathematics.

National recognition

Received the National Medal of Science and the Turing Award.

Sources & photo creditWikipedia biography and references ↗Further biography and career ↗

Photo: PIerre.Lescanne. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.