The Saga of John Backus
Category
Scientists & Inventors
Era / Tenure
Active Era
Leaderboard Rank
#87 in Scientists & Inventors
Verified Hearts
42,638 Hearts
ORIGINS & BACKGROUND
Profile & Early Foundations
John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He led the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Backus–Naur form (BNF), a widely used notation to define syntaxes of formal languages.
THE JOURNEY & BREAKTHROUGHS
Major Works & Significant Milestones
He also contributed to the design of ALGOL, and later researched the function-level programming paradigm, presenting his findings in his influential 1977 Turing Award lecture "Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?" The IEEE awarded Backus the W. McDowell Award in 1967 for the development of FORTRAN.
Key Milestone & Career Defining Moment
He led the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Backus–Naur form (BNF), a widely used notation to define syntaxes of formal languages.
