Fortran的發明人John W. Backus過世了

上周六過世的。終年82歲。當年John在IBM大型主機上用機器語言編程，累得半死。一怒之下組建了一支10人的研發隊伍，開發出了Fortran。我們常用的BNF文法也是他的手筆。//sigh...不知不覺已經到了心目中的英雄們漸行漸遠的年紀。 紐約時報有報道。想不到John W Backus當年也有那麼多傳奇故事。摘他的話自勉：你得願意不斷失敗。。。你得產生很多主意並刻苦工作，最後不過發現這些點子其實沒用。你就這樣一次又一次地嘗試，直到你找到真正可行的想法。

“You need the willingness to fail all the time,” he said. “You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work.”