1977 · Languages & software
FORTRAN helped scientific programmers express calculations at a higher level.
Visual guide
Express a scientific calculation.
Translate formulas and loops.
Execute the generated program.
Practical high-level languages expanded who could program and how much work a programmer could express.
A language’s grammar describes which expressions are well formed; it is not a complete description of their meaning.
01 · The idea
John Backus led the development of FORTRAN at IBM. Scientific formulas and loops could be translated into efficient machine instructions, reducing the need to write assembly language for every calculation. His work also influenced the formal description of programming-language syntax through the notation associated with Backus and Peter Naur.
Practical high-level languages expanded who could program and how much work a programmer could express.
02 · The people
John Backus led the IBM team that created FORTRAN, making high-level programming practical for scientific computation. The project combined a more accessible language with a compiler capable of producing efficient machine code. He also contributed to the formal description of programming-language syntax and later explored functional programming. His career showed how language design could change both everyday programming practice and the questions computer scientists ask.
Read the biography ↗03 · Read further
Original explanations based on the official award record. The subject label is an editorial navigation aid.
Automata, grammars and algorithms helped make compilers teachable and dependable.
The story
Abstraction lets a system change inside while preserving its promises outside.
The story