Eugene Edward McDonnell (October 18, 1926 – August 17, 2010) was a

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

pioneer and long-time contributor to the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

siblings APL and J. He was a graduate of

Brooklyn Technical High School Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is an elite public high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is one of th ...

. After serving as an

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non ...

in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he attended the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, graduating in 1949

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

, and was elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. He was awarded a First Year Graduate Fellowship to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he studied

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

, particularly

Dante's Dante's is a nightclub and live music venue in Portland, Oregon. The venue, located along West Burnside Street and owned by Frank Faillace, hosts a variety of acts ranging from burlesque to rock music. Dante's is housed in an unreinforced masonr ...

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and ...

. Studying the poems of

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

, he noticed that the first two poems in Frost's book

West-Running Brook ''West-Running Brook'' is a collection of poetry by Robert Frost, written in 1923 and published by Henry Holt and Co. in 1928, and containing woodcuts by J. J. Lankes. The title of the poem that the volume is named by is very significant. Wher ...

, "Spring Pools" and "The Freedom of the Moon", not only discuss reflecting, but the rhyme schemes of the two reflect each other: AABCBC and CBCBAA. When he met Frost, he was delighted to find that they had both committed the 193 lines of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

's "

Lycidas "Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who drown ...

" to memory. His first work at IBM was in the design of IBM's first

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...

system, which became a very early host to IVSYS (for Iverson system), a predecessor of APL. In 1968, he became a colleague of Ken Iverson, used Iverson notation before APL was named, and was active in the very earliest days of APL. He holds (3 September 1968) "Information Transfer Control System" allowing communication between two users. In 1978, he left IBM and joined I. P. Sharp Associates, retiring therefrom in 1990. At IBM, McDonnell devised the notation for the signum and

circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

functions in APL, designed the

complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...

floor function In mathematics and computer science, the floor function is the function that takes as input a real number , and gives as output the greatest integer less than or equal to , denoted or . Similarly, the ceiling function maps to the least int ...

, and proposed the extension of or and

and or AND may refer to: Logic, grammar, and computing * Conjunction (grammar), connecting two words, phrases, or clauses * Logical conjunction in mathematical logic, notated as "∧", "⋅", "&", or simple juxtaposition * Bitwise AND, a boole ...

to GCD and LCM. With Iverson he was responsible for including hooks and forks in J. The result of zero divided by zero in J is as he proposed in 1976. In 1987, he won the

Iverson Award The Iverson Award, more formally the Kenneth E. Iverson Award for Outstanding Contribution to APL, is presented by the Special Interest Group on APL (SIGAPL) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It is presented to a person who has mad ...

. McDonnell was the publisher of the APL Press, producing "A Source Book in APL" and "APL Quote Quad, the Early Years". He was the editor and principal contributor of the Recreational APL column in ''APL Quote-Quad'' for many years. He wrote dozens of the "At Play with J" columns in ''Vector'', the journal of the British APL Association. He contributed to Sloane's

On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is an online database of integer sequences. It was created and maintained by Neil Sloane while researching at AT&T Labs. He transferred the intellectual property and hosting of the OEIS to the ...

. He was a member of the

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

Society of North America (JASNA), and gave a talk "Classical Persuasion" at the JASNA meeting at Lake Louise in 1993. He was active in the Bay area Jane Austen group, and wrote a topical index to the Dierdre Le Faye edition of Austen's letters, which can be seen at the Republic of Pemberley website. McDonnell died peacefully at his home in Palo Alto on August 17, 2010.

Conference Papers

*IBM69 Boston, ''A Formal Description of JCL'' *APL73 Toronto, ''The Variety of Alternative Definitions of a Simple Function'' *APL73 Copenhagen, ''Complex Floor'' *APL74 Anaheim, ''The Caret Functions'' *APL75 Pisa, ''A Notation for the GCD and LCM Functions'' *APL76 Ottawa, ''Zero Divided By Zero'' *IBM78 Los Altos, organizer *APL79 Rochester, NY, ''Fuzzy Residue'' *APL80 Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, ''Extending APL to Infinity'', with

Jeffrey Shallit Jeffrey Outlaw Shallit (born October 17, 1957) is a computer scientist, number theorist, and a noted critic of intelligent design. He is married to Anna Lubiw, also a computer scientist. Early life and education Shallit was born in Philadelp ...

*IPSA80 Toronto, ''Commercial Applications for Event Handling'' *APL81 San Francisco, conference chairman *APL84 Helsinki, APL award *APL86 Manchester, UK, ''A Perfect Square Root Routine'' *APL87 Dallas,

*APL88 Sydney, ''Life: Nasty, Brutish, and Short'' *APL89 NYC, ''Phrasal Forms'', with

Kenneth E. Iverson Kenneth Eugene Iverson (17 December 1920 – 19 October 2004) was a Canadian computer scientist noted for the development of the programming language APL. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 "for his pioneering effort in programming l ...

(introduces hooks and forks) *APL90 Copenhagen, ''APL\?'', with

Roger Hui Roger Kwok Wah Hui (December 29 1953 – October 16, 2021) was a computer scientist who worked on array programming languages. He codeveloped the programming language J. Education and career Hui was born in Hong Kong in 1953. In 1966, he im ...

, and Arthur Whitney (introduces J) *APL91 Stanford, conference organizer *APL93 Toronto, ''From Trees Into Boxes'', with David Steinbrook

References

External links

Papers and Articles"At Play With J" columns"At Play With J (Edn 2)" paperback
{{DEFAULTSORT:McDonnell, Eugene 1926 births 2010 deaths United States Army personnel of World War II APL implementers Brooklyn Technical High School alumni IBM employees Harvard University alumni I. P. Sharp Associates employees People from Palo Alto, California University of Kentucky alumni United States Army non-commissioned officers