John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz: The Innovators Who Built the BASIC Programming Language
John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz: The Innovators Who Built the BASIC Programming Language The world of computing has been changed dramatically in the past few decades due to the advancements in programming languages. Among the most influential of these programming languages is BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), which was created by two Dartmouth College professors, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. Kemeny and Kurtz first began work on the language in 1963 and it took them two and a half years to develop BASIC. The goal they had was to create a language that would enable non-computer experts to use computers easily. BASIC made computers much more accessible to the general public, allowing them to get their hands on a computer and start writing their own programs. It quickly became one of the most popular programming languages of the time and it is still widely used today. So what were the remarkable innovations of John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in BASIC programming langu...