Demise of a Forerunner

Do you know John Backus? I didn't till I read his obituary today.

Though I never used it commercially, Fortran was first computer language I learnt and quickly forgot. In fact, Fortran was the only computer language taught in schools in my time (now guess when?). But, since then I didn't see much of Fortran till today. So, I was mildly surprised to see the 'my first language' resurface in the media, that too in a obituary. And thats how I came to know that John Backus and his team developed it in 1957 and that too in IBM.