Talk:John Backus

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computer science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Computer science related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Computer scienceWikipedia:WikiProject Computer scienceTemplate:WikiProject Computer scienceComputer science articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Things you can help WikiProject Computer science with:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests :
- Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet
Cleanup :
- Computer science articles needing attention
- Computer science articles needing expert attention
Copyedit :
- Computing
Expand :
- Computer science
Infobox :
- Computer science articles without infoboxes
Maintain :
- Timeline of computing 2020–present
Photo :
- Find pictures for the biographies of computer scientists (see List of computer scientists)
- Computing articles needing images
Stubs :
- Computer science stubs
Unreferenced :
- WikiProject Computer science/Unreferenced BLPs
Project-related :
- Tag all relevant articles in Category:Computer science and sub-categories with {{WikiProject Computer science}}

Computing: Software High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Software.

Pennsylvania Low‑importance

	Pennsylvania portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States: Delaware Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Delaware portal This article is supported by WikiProject Delaware (assessed as Low-importance).

New York (state): Columbia University Low‑importance

	New York (state) portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York (state), a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of New York on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York (state)Wikipedia:WikiProject New York (state)Template:WikiProject New York (state)New York (state) articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Columbia University (assessed as Low-importance).

Philadelphia Low‑importance

	Philadelphia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philadelphia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Philadelphia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhiladelphiaWikipedia:WikiProject PhiladelphiaTemplate:WikiProject PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool because one or more other projects use this class. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Biography: Science and Academia

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group.

Virginia Low‑importance

	Virginia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Virginia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Virginia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.VirginiaWikipedia:WikiProject VirginiaTemplate:WikiProject VirginiaVirginia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

FORTRAN[edit]

Though I admire brief things your bio on John Backus is far, far too short. The modern computer combined with John Backus' FORTRAN language is one of "THE" inventions of the 20th Century as noted by the National Academy of Sciences. The computer was marvelous, but with out the 'high level' language of FORTRAN it would have been a gee-whiz thing. Requiring days and weeks of laboriously entering long strings of numbers (without error) to do the simplest things. FORTRAN, or FORmula TRANslation, allowed any mathmetician or scientist to use ordinary equation type english language to solve problems. The FORTRAN compiler would then translate that into tons of machine language to run on the various computers (90% IBM) of the day. This freed the scientist to pursue scientific things rather than laboriously learning and using machine language. I could go on and on. The invention of FORTRAN was one of the first steps to make the computer useful, other steps, and people would lead us to the supremely useful PC of today.

comments from Harry Porter - I was nearby in the early days.

You are right of course, we have many articles that are way too short. It's just a case of waiting until an interested and knowledgeable contributor comes along. If that's you in this case, please go ahead and expand the article :) -- sannse 21:16 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

--- I would venture to say that the Backus-Naur Form was much more important in the grand scheme of things than even FORTRAN was. Not to take anything away from Backus' breakthrough and useful language (ground stations controlling satellites launched into orbit in 2006 still use FORTRAN code!), but sooner or later, he or someone else would have come up with a scientifically-oriented programming language. The Backus-Naur Form (or Notation) he and Peter Naur built, created a standard which freed computer scientists to create compilers and interpreters for all kinds of new languages. The creators of COBOL (1961), BASIC (1965), PL/1 (1970s), C, PASCAL, etc. all benefitted from this huge advance. 00:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Raryel

When was FORTRAN invented? --Hirzel 21:37 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

1954. 02:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Raryel

Great resource for info on Backus[edit]

Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/obituaries/20cnd-backus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin His NYTimes obituary (Narkstraws 01:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Full Article on the Life of John Backus[edit]

Full Article on the life history of John Backus (Not an Obituary) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/20backus.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

--Root Beers 03:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the rest[edit]

This article should state "from 1960 to 2007, nothing at all is known about his whereabouts or doings". Really. I'm serious.Wjhonson (talk) 21:35, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on John Backus. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20050409030420/http://http.cs.berkeley.edu:80/~aiken/ftp/FL.ps to http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/ftp/FL.ps

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 22:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on John Backus. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on John Backus. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20030605163136/http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Backus.html to http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Backus.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lithuanian family name[edit]

Was he an offspring of Lithuanian immigrants? both or just a male line? like this person https://www.geni.com/people/Juozas-Ba%C4%8Dkus/6000000020868010289