Kenneth E. Iverson
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Kenneth Eugene Iverson (17 December 1920, Camrose, Alberta, Canada – 19 October 2004, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was a computer scientist most notable for developing the APL programming language in 1957. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 for his contributions to mathematical notation and programming language theory.
The Iverson Award for contributions to APL was named in his honor.
He received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Physics in 1951 from Queen's University. At Harvard University, he received his Master's degree in 1951 in Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in 1954.
As an assistant professor at Harvard, Iverson developed a mathematical notation for manipulating arrays that he taught to his students. In 1960, he began work for IBM and working with Adin Falkoff, created APL based on the notation he had developed. He was named an IBM Fellow in 1970.
He later developed the J programming language, together with Roger Hui.
Contents |
[edit] Books
- A Programming Language (1962)
- Automatic Data Processing (with Frederick Brooks) (1963)
- Elementary Functions: an algorithmic treatment (Science Research Associates, Inc.) (1966)
- A Source Book In APL (with Adin D. Falkoff) (APL Press) (1981)
- Tangible Math (Iverson Software Inc.) (1990)
- The ISI Dictionary of J (Iverson Software Inc.) (1991)
[edit] Awards
- IBM Fellow (IBM) (1970)
- Harry H. Goode Memorial Award (IEEE Computer Society) (1975)
- Turing Award (Association for Computing Machinery) (1979)
- Computer Pioneer Award [Charter recipient] (IEEE Computer Society) (1982)
[edit] See also
[edit] External article links
- A Formal Description of SYSTEM/360 by Adin D. Falkoff, Kenneth E. Iverson, and Edward H. Sussenguth, Jr., IBM Systems Journal, Volume 3, Number 3, 1964.
- The Design of APL by Adin D. Falkoff and Kenneth E. Iverson, IBM Journal of Research and Development, Volume 17, Number 4, 1973.
- Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979 Turing Award Lecture) by Kenneth E. Iverson, Communications of the ACM, Volume 23, Number 8, August 1980.
- A Personal View of APL by Kenneth E. Iverson, IBM Systems Journal, Volume 30, Number 4, 1991.
[edit] External links
- Kenneth E. Iverson: This page at the Digital Bibliography and Library Project lists Kenneth Iverson's publications.
- Short Biography at the science.ca website
- Ehud Lamm's obituary at Lambda the Ultimate
- Remembering Kenneth E. Iverson A set of anecdotes and accounts published in Vector, the Journal of the British APL Association
- A Celebration of the life of Kenneth Eugene Iverson
