We didn't know what we wanted and how to do it. It just
sort of grew. The first struggle was over what the language
would look like. Then how to parse expressions --- it was a
big problem and what we did looks astonishingly clumsy
now....
John Backus on the invention of FORTRAN
Necessity, says the adage, is the mother of invention. Yet
some inventors are motivated less by necessity than by sheer
irritation at the messiness or inefficiency of the way
things are. John Backus is such an inventor. He played an
inspirational role in three great creations: FORTRAN, the
first high level programming language; Backus-Naur Form,
which provides a way to describe grammatical rules for high
level languages; and lastly a functional programming
language called FP, which advocates a mathematical approach
to programming. Today, each of his inventions drives
research and commercial agendas throughout the planet. Yet
Backus's own life is one of restless energy --- from his
youth through his retirement.
A distaste for inefficiency seems to run in the family. Before World War I, Backus's father had risen from a modest
background to the post of chief chemist for the Atlas
Powder Company, a manufacturer of nitroglycerine to be used
in explosives. His promotion came for good reason.
Their plants kept blowing up or having very poor yields and
they couldn't figure out why. The yield was very temperature sensitive. My father discovered that the very expensive German thermometers they had were incorrect. So, he
went to Germany and studied thermometer making and got some
good thermometers and their plants stopped blowing up so
much.
During World War I, Backus senior served as a munitions officer. A promised postwar job at Dupont never materialized,
so he became a stockbroker instead. By the time John
Backus was born in Philadelphia in 1924, his father had
grown rich in the postwar boom. Backus spent his early
years in Wilmington, Delaware and attended the prestigious
Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
I flunked out every year. I never studied. I hated studying.
I was just goofing around. It had the delightful
consequence that every year I went to summer school in New
Hampshire where I spent the summer sailing and having a nice
time.
After a delayed graduation from the Hill School in 1942,
Backus attended the University of Virginia, where his father
wanted him to major in chemistry. Backus liked the theory,
but hated the labs. He spent most of his time at parties,
waiting to be drafted.
By the end of his second semester, Backus attended only one
class a week --- an untaxing music appreciation class.
Finally, the school authorities caught up with him and
his career at the University of Virginia ended. He joined the
Army in 1943.
Backus became a corporal in charge of an antiaircraft crew
at Fort Stewart, Georgia, but his performance on an aptitude
test convinced the Army to send him to a pre-engineering
program at the University of Pittsburgh. A later medical
aptitude test may have saved his life.
My friends were shipped off to the Battle of the Bulge and I
went to Haverford College to study pre-med.
As part of the pre-med program, Backus worked at an Atlantic
City hospital in a neurosurgery ward that treated head
wounds. Through a bizarre coincidence, Backus was diagnosed
with a bone tumor and a plate was installed in his head.
Soon after, he attended medical school at Flower and Fifth
Avenue Hospital (now New York Medical College), but that
lasted only nine months.
I hated it. They don't like thinking in medical school. They
memorize --- that's all they want you to do. You must not
think.
Backus also found out that the metal plate in his head did
not fit properly. A nearby Staten Island hospital specialized in
plates. Backus went there to have a replacement
made. Not satisfied with the proposed design, he got to know
the technicians and designed his own. After that, Backus
quit the medical field. He took a small apartment in New
York City for 18 dollars a month.
I really didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my
life. I decided that what I wanted was a good hi fi set because
I liked music. In those days, they didn't really exist
so I went to a radio technicians' school. I had a very nice
teacher --- the first good teacher I ever had --- and he
asked me to cooperate with him and compute the characteristics of
some circuits for a magazine.
I remember doing relatively simple calculations to get a few
points on a curve for an amplifier. It was laborious and
tedious and horrible, but it got me interested in math. The
fact that it had an application --- that interested me.
Backus enrolled at Columbia University's School of General
Studies to take some math courses. He disliked calculus but
enjoyed algebra. By the spring of 1949, the 25 year-old
Backus was a few months from graduating with a B.S. in
mathematics, still without any idea what to do with his
life.
One day that spring, Backus visited the IBM Computer Center
on Madison Avenue. He was taken on a tour of the Selective
Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), one of IBM's early
electronic (vacuum tube) machines.
The SSEC occupied a large room, and the huge machine bulged
with tubes and wires. While on the tour, Backus mentioned to
the guide that he was looking for a job. She told Backus to
talk to the director.
I said no, I couldn't. I looked sloppy and disheveled. But
she insisted and so I did. I took a test and did ok.