Father of Fortran, John Backus dies

Although I have never used Fortran before, I heard quite a lot about it from my friends in the engineering fields. Fortran, short for Formula Translation, is a programming language invented in 1950s, but still widely used in today's modern computing world. It is also the first high-level programming language ever created.

Prior to Fortran, computers had to be meticulously "hand-coded" -- programmed in the raw strings of digits that triggered actions inside the machine. [Technology, CNN.com]

The creator of Fortran, John Backus, who also invented Backus-Naur Form(BNF), died at the age of 82. BNF is a way of formally describing the syntax/grammar of computer languages. These two inventions have a great impact of today's IT world.

It is sad to know a great person like that has left us (_ _ )

Rest in Peace.