Paul H. Cress (1939–2004) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

computer scientist. He was a young lecturer in computer science at the University of Waterloo (

Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (formerly Waterloo County, Ontario, Waterloo County). Waterloo is situated about west-southwest of Toronto. Due to the c ...

, Canada) when, starting in 1966, he and his colleague Paul Dirksen led a team of programmers developing a fast Fortran programming language

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

called

WATFOR WATFIV, or WATerloo FORTRAN IV, developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR. WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. WATFIV was ...

(WATerloo FORtran), for the

IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...

family of computers. The /360 WATFOR project was initiated by Professor J. Wesley Graham, following the successful implementation in 1965 of a WATFOR compiler for the

IBM 7040 The IBM 7040 was a historic but short-lived model of transistor computer built in the 1960s. History It was announced by IBM in December 1961, but did not ship until April 1963. A later member of the IBM 700/7000 series of scientific computers ...

computer. An enhanced version of the /360 WATFOR compiler was called WATFIV, variously interpreted to mean "WATerloo Fortran IV" or "WATFOR-plus-one". WATFOR and WATFIV made Fortran programming accessible to university students and researchers and even high schoolers, and largely established Waterloo's early reputation as a centre for software and Computer Science research. In 1972, Cress and Dirksen were joint winners of the

Grace Murray Hopper Award The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or serv ...

from the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

, "For the creation of the WATFOR Compiler, the first member of a powerful new family of diagnostic and educational programming tools." Cress died August 20, 2004, aged 65.

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cress, Paul 1939 births 2004 deaths Fortran Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Canadian computer scientists

Publications

See also

References