John Backus Professions : Computer Scientist Born : December 3, 1924 Died : March 17, 2007 Browse All Authors Top 7 quotes by John Backus I, myself, have had many failures and I've learned that if you are not failing a lot, you are probably not being as creative as you could be -you aren't stretching your imagination. John Backus learning creative imagination Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701 (an early computer), writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs. John Backus lazy computer writing Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional programs, but they only talk about them and cannot alter their ungainly properties. Unlike von Neumann languages, the language of ordinary algebra is suitable both for stating its laws and for transforming an equation into its solution, all within the "language." John Backus understanding law ordinary You need the willingness to fail all the time. John Backus doe ideas needs You need the willingness to fail all the time. John Backus willingness failing needs They don't like thinking in medical school. They memorize - that's all they want you to do. You must not think. John Backus want school thinking Much of my work has come from being lazy. John Backus being-lazy lazy laziness Similar Authors Bill Joy computer-scientist Butler Lampson computer-scientist Brian Reid computer-scientist Brian Kernighan computer-scientist Andrew S. Tanenbaum computer-scientist Andy Hertzfeld computer-scientist All Authors
