Re: I. M. John W. Backus
From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:53:39 GMT
Message-ID: <nskMh.48929$zU1.42079_at_pd7urf1no>
>
>
> It's odd that the obit got things so wrong. Fortran is a monstrosity --
> one of those abominable things that was just good enough. It's greatest
> achievement was to show how not to write a compiler. Backus more than
> redeemed himself a few years later by learning from fortran how to write
> a compiler when he and Peter Naur came up with BNF.
>
> Fortran should be a side-note to BNF and not vice versa.
>
> (BNF is a very big contribution--more than enough to share.)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:53:39 GMT
Message-ID: <nskMh.48929$zU1.42079_at_pd7urf1no>
Bob Badour wrote:
> paul c wrote:
>
>> mAsterdam wrote: >> >>> mAsterdam wrote: >>> >>>> Marshall wrote: >>>> >>>>> ...when did formal methods for describing programming languages >>>>> really get started? >>> >>> >>>> Wikipedia mentions 1956 ( >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy ) >>>> - and 1959 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus-Naur_form ) ... >>> >>> >>> Sadly, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/20backus.html >> >> >> No idea how big what he did will turn out to be, but comparing it to >> the IT mumbo-jumbo that increases every day, he should go down as a >> worthy traveller.
>
>
> It's odd that the obit got things so wrong. Fortran is a monstrosity --
> one of those abominable things that was just good enough. It's greatest
> achievement was to show how not to write a compiler. Backus more than
> redeemed himself a few years later by learning from fortran how to write
> a compiler when he and Peter Naur came up with BNF.
>
> Fortran should be a side-note to BNF and not vice versa.
>
> (BNF is a very big contribution--more than enough to share.)
p Received on Thu Mar 22 2007 - 01:53:39 CET