Jim Brown: Difference between revisions

'''James Arthur Brown''' is an APL language designer and the primary force behind [[IBM]]'s [[APL2]]. In this role he was one of the primary advocates for the [[nested array model]]. He was awarded the [[Iverson Award]] in 1993 for his work on APL2.

Brown studied mathematics at [[wikipedia:Gannon College|Gannon College]] in Pennsylvania<ref name=wiki>Jim Brown. [https://old.aplwiki.com/JimBrown APL Wiki user page]</ref> (he first used a computer there in 1958). After graduating, he took a position at [[IBM]] [[wikipedia:IBM Federal Systems|Federal Systems]] in 1965, and soon learned about APL and its use in [[Falkoff]] and [[Iverson]]'s "A formal description of SYSTEM/360".<ref>[[Adin Falkoff]], [[Ken Iverson]], and Edward H. Sussenguth Jr. [https://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jhowland/class.files.cs2321.html/falkoff.pdf "A Formal Description of System/360"]. IBM Systems Journal '''3''':3:198-262. 1964.</ref> Brown later (at an [[wikipedia:Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] meeting) met Adin Falkoff, who demonstrated [[APL\360]] to him on a 2741 terminal. Although Brown's manager declined to make him an account on the Yorktown Heights installation Falkoff had connected to, Brown learned of a planned installation at [[Syracuse University]] and enrolled in Ph.D. studies there in 1968. He would graduate in 1971 having written (advised by [[Garth Foster]]) "A Generalization of APL" for his thesis—the document that later became the foundation of [[APL2]] and an influence on [[NARS]]. However, he had left his IBM position to begin studies, and the pay for his new job running Syracuse's APL service pay proved insufficient, so in 1969 Brown also began work at IBM's [[wikipedia:Thomas J. Watson Research Center|Watson Research Center]] at Yorktown Heights. In addition to APL implementation such as extending [[Encode]], [[Decode]], and [[Catenate]] to higher-rank arrays, Brown discussed language designs with his colleagues and in particular [[Trenchard More]], whose array theory closely resembled Brown's ideas. However, Brown was not allowed at the time to access More's proposals made at IBM in order to avoid their content being made public.<ref name=personal>Jim Brown. [https://old.aplwiki.com/OnAPLsHistory?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=JimBrownsPersonalHistoryOf_APL_20170405.pdf A Personal History of APL]. Updated 2017-04-05.</ref>