John Backus

“Conventional programming languages are growing ever more enormous, but not stronger. Inherent defects at the most basic level cause them to be both fat and weak.”

“A good functional programming style is not a panacea, it does not magically solve all problems, but it is a good discipline.”

“As far as I was concerned, the problem was not to get an elegant programming language, but was to get a language that could be translated into efficient code.”

“Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701, writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs.”

“We simply did not know what we were doing. For the first year we had no idea of how to do the translation. No one had ever done it before.”

“For twenty years I have been successfully hiding behind the slogan of 'I am a programmer'. From now on I shall be forced to say that I am a scientist, and for the rest of my life I shall have to live up to the title.”