I.B.M.
Posted on 03/20/2007 7:10:36 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
John W. Backus, who assembled and led the I.B.M. team that created Fortran, the first widely used programming language, which helped open the door to modern computing, died on Saturday at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 82.
John W. Backus in the late 1990s. Fortran was released in 1957.
His daughter Karen Backus announced the death, saying the family did not know the cause, other than age.
Fortran, released in 1957, was “the turning point” in computer software, much as the microprocessor was a giant step forward in hardware, according to J.A.N. Lee, a leading computer historian.
Fortran changed the terms of communication between humans and computers, moving up a level to a language that was more comprehensible by humans. So Fortran, in computing vernacular, is considered the first successful higher-level language.
Mr. Backus and his youthful team, then all in their 20s and 30s, devised a programming language that resembled a combination of English shorthand and algebra. Fortran, short for Formula Translator, was very similar to the algebraic formulas that scientists and engineers used in their daily work. With some training, they were no longer dependent on a programming priesthood to translate their science and engineering problems into a language a computer would understand.
In an interview several years ago, Ken Thompson, who developed the Unix operating system at Bell Labs in 1969, observed that “95 percent of the people who programmed in the early years would never have done it without Fortran.”
He added: “It was a massive step.”
Fortran was also extremely efficient, running as fast as programs painstakingly hand-coded by the programming elite, who worked in arcane machine languages.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
i hated fortran!
probably not as much as people now hate the whole windows development environment - oh for the simple days of Fortran, JCL, and punch cards.
So you liked COBOL?
And I'm sure you realized you wouldn't be reading this page if now were still the "simple days". Of course, but for those simple days, we wouldn't be reading this page.
fyi
COBOL followed quickly for business applications. FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation)was used primarily for number calculations. Those were the days indeed.
"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
Gone to that great Do Loop in the sky...
R.I.P.
Fortran has been running our plant for over 25 years. The systems are scheduled to be replaced with SAP, which will provide 1000 times the code and 1/2 the functionality.
Some other FORTRAN jokes (from Wikipedia):
"GOD is REAL unless declared INTEGER."
Joke, circa 1980 (following the standardization of FORTRAN 77): "Q: What will the scientific programming language of the year 2000 look like? ... A: Nobody knows, but its name will be FORTRAN."
A good FORTRAN programmer can write FORTRAN code in any language.
Computer Science without FORTRAN and COBOL is like birthday cake without ketchup and mustard.
Ha!
I assume an announcement will be made if that happens!
LOL.. DO LOOPS...
been a long time since I heard that !!!
Fortran was my first language. It was math based and I spoke algebra pretty well so it was a comfortable language for me. Many of the concepts held up well when I later used Pascal and C.
That's a typical example of programmer humor.
Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't.
In college, I had a job programming in FORTRAN. It was about the most fun thing I ever did for money.
I used to dream in FORTRAN.
DO Loops,....one of the great inventions of all time...up there with the light bulb.
MACRO 11 Forever!
I wonder if they buried him "9 side down"
Before Fortran there was SOAP....Symbolic Optimizing and Programming....used on the IBM 650 whose memory was a rotating Drum....
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