The passing of a truly great computer person: John Backus of Fortran and Backus-Naur Form (BNF)

[Jon 'maddog' Hall]

Hi all,

A friend of mine passed this on to me:

> John Backus, he of FORTRAN (and BNF) has died:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/20backus.html?em&ex=1174536000&en=4e620cd9817dc96b&ei=5087%0A
> 
> Hard to believe that the Times is so ignorant they called it Fortran
> instead of FORTRAN.
> 
> 
The link is definitely worth reading, even if the Times did spell
"FORTRAN" wrong. :-)

maddog