According to the most recent issue of U.S. News and World report:

'In the '50s, computers spoke in numbers and letters that programmers
had to enter by hand, making even simple calculations take hours. Worse,
every computer model spoke a different language. Then IBM employee John
Backus and colleagues developed a system that translated a more literal
series of words into a language called FORTRAN, short for "formula
translating." The system, which debuted in 1957, sped up the programming
process many times over and opened up computer programming to a much
wider audience.'

Golly.  Is that the official definition of a computer language?  Or
maybe the definition of a compiler? Or maybe the editors are working on
a way to defeat spam filters.

Final thought: Wikipedia couldn't be much worse than the mainstream
press.

George



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