Peter Naur wins ACM Turing Award

[Terry Reedy]

"Colin J. Williams" <cjw at sympatico.ca> wrote in message 
news:18fPf.157$xM2.46142 at news20.bellglobal.com...
>> Terry Reedy wrote:
>>
>>>http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/3_2006/turing_3_01_2006.cfm
>>>
>>>Peter Naur was co-developer of Backus/Naur grammar notation, co-author 
>>>and
>>>editor of the Algol 60 specification, and co-developer of a successful
>>>Algol compiler.

> Peter Naur's honour is long overdue.

That was my reaction also, tempered by three observations.

1. I do not have enough detailed knowledge of who invented what when to 
judge details of credit allocation.

2. The importance of Algol60 (and the impetus of the award) is not its 
usage in the 60s but the dominance of the family of languages it inspired, 
including, at least in some important parts, Python.  But this has been a 
gradual development.  So when did the award become 'due', to make it 
'overdue' now?  (I would say by 1990, at least.)

3. To call it overdue suggests that it should have been awarded before, 
*instead of* to someone else.  But I am not about to suggest which of the 
previous (worthy, I am sure) recipients he should have been instead of ;-).

Nobel's will specificed awards for the most important contribution in the 
previous year.  The Nobel committees recognized that this is ludicrous in 
that recognition of importance can take decades.

Terry Jan Reedy