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ACM TURING WINNER IVERSON LEAVES PROGRAMMING LEGACY
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Computer Pioneer Developed APL Language
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New York, November 9, 2004 -- Computer
pioneer Kenneth E. Iverson, who won ACM's prestigious Turing Award in 1979
for his seminal contributions to computer programming languages, died
October 19th, in Toronto, Canada. While at IBM, Iverson invented APL (which
stands for "a programming language"). Designed originally as a notation for
the concise expression of mathematical algorithms, APL was developed by
Iverson into an interactive programming language that was widely used in
academic and commercial applications.
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As an assistant professor at Harvard, Iverson developed a mathematical notation for manipulating arrays in order to simplify the teaching of algebra to his students. The programming language went unnamed and unimplemented for many years, known only as "Iverson's Language". In 1960, Iverson joined IBM, and in 1962, with Adin D. Falkoff, he created APL based on the notation he had developed, which was published in a book entitled "A Programming Language." This language challenges conventional algebraic syntax but is compact, simple and easy to learn. APL is an interactive array-oriented language with many innovative features. It is written using a non-standard character set and is dynamically typed with dynamic scope. A hardware version of APL with a keyboard that has all the necessary characters was built and marketed as well.
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Recently, Iverson worked with Jsoftware, Inc., on the Jay Language, which can be accessed naturally from as ASCII keyboard and display. He saw "J" as a way to introduce both mathematics and programming. He published several small books which use "J" in this way.
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The citation for Iverson's 1979 Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize of computing, cited "his pioneering effort in programming languages and mathematical notation resulting in what the computing field now knows as APL, for his contributions to the implementation of interactive systems, to educational uses of APL, and to programming language theory and practice."
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Iverson grew up on a farm in Alberta, Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He attended Queen's University in Ontario and earned his MA and PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard, where he helped establish the first graduate course in computer science. In 1980, he joined I.P.Sharp Associates, a timesharing computer system provider.
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In 1991, Iverson was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Technology. He won the Harry M. Goode Memorial Award in 1975 in recognition of his conception and development of APL. He was named a Computer Pioneer Charter Recipient by IEEE CS in 1981 for his efforts in the creation and continued viability of the computer industry. Iverson was named an IBM Fellow in 1970.
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About ACM
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ACM (www.acm.org) is widely recognized as the
premier organization for computing professionals, delivering a broad array
of resources that advance the computing and IT disciplines, enable
professional development, and promote policies and research that benefit
society. For further information, contact Virginia Gold 212-626-0505 or vgold@acm.org.
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