
Kenneth E. Iverson: An Autobiographical Essay (2004) [pdf] - kick
http://archive.vector.org.uk/trad/v234/iverson.pdf
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kick
This is an amazing piece of computing history. Unfortunately, it was never
finished: Iverson died during that year, and as the text says, McIntyre's
health started to decline as well.

A less-well typeset (but hyperlinked) copy can be found on J's website. J was
the last programming language K.E.I. worked on before he died.

[https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm)

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nickpeterson
Everything I read about Iverson makes me like him more. I really wish his
ideas were more prevalent in modern languages.

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kick
Not just languages: math, too! Absolutely brilliant man. In some ways, it's
unfortunate that he influenced programming more than he influenced
mathematics: his ideas for teaching were _incredible_ , and all attempts to
implement them succeeded. Were his ideas implemented more widely, there's no
doubt that North America's schools would be leading the world.

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firethief
Did something about his math-teaching ideas make them less applicable outside
North America?

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kick
No, but he was born in Canada and spent most of his life in America, and all
of his educational attempts were in North America.

