John Paul Morrison

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John Paul Morrison (b. John Paul Rodker 30 July 1937) is a British-born Canadian computer programmer, and the inventor of flow-based programming (FBP). He is the author of the book Flow-Based Programming: A New Approach to Application Development[1], which Ed Yourdon has included in his list of "Cool Books".[2]

Morrison is the son of the writer, translator and editor, John Rodker and the artist Barbara McKenzie-Smith. Born John Paul Rodker, his name was changed by deed poll when his mother remarried. He was educated at The Dragon School, Eton College (he was a King's Scholar, specializing in Classics), and King's College, Cambridge - M.A. in Anthropology and Archaeology, specializing in social anthropology.

He joined IBM UK in January 1959, as an EDPM (Electronic Data Processing Machines Representative), and retired (from IBM Canada) in 1992. The first computer he programmed was the IBM 650. He also wired plug-boards. During his career with IBM, he worked on compilers, data bases, text processing, and applications in an a number of different areas, especially in the field of banking. During this time, he also worked closely with the distinguished IBM architect, Wayne Stevens, to refine and promote the concepts of flow-based programming, until Stevens' death in 1993. IBM Canada developed and marketed an FBP product, called DFDM, which Stevens described in his book Software Design - Concepts and Methods.[3]

Morrison later spent 4 years doing contract work on the "Y2K bug". He now works as a contractor and consultant, and currently lives in historic Unionville, Ontario.

Some years before the publication of Flow-Based Programming he published a description of the concepts, and IBM's experience using it, in the IBM Systems Journal under the name DSLM.[4] This was the first article by an employee of the IBM A/FE (Americas/FarEast) division to appear in the IBM Systems Journal. His book (and the article preceding it) is being cited more and more widely - see Flow-based programming#External_links.

[edit] References

  1. ^ J. Paul Morrison, Flow-Based Programming: A New Approach to Application Development, van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994, ISBN 0-442-01771-5
  2. ^ http://www.yourdon.com/personal/books/gentech/index.html Ed Yourdon's list of Cool Books
  3. ^ W.P. Stevens, Software Design - Concepts and Methods, Practical Software Engineering Series, Ed. Allen Macro, Prentice Hall, 1990, ISBN 0-13-820242-7
  4. ^ J. Paul Morrison, Data Stream Linkage Mechanism, IBM Systems Journal Vol. 17, No. 4, 1978

[edit] External links

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