Iverson, Kenneth E.

Kenneth E. Iverson, in full Kenneth Eugene Iverson, (born December 17, 1920, Camrose, Alberta, Canada—died October 19, 2004, Toronto, Ontario), Canadian mathematician and computer scientist who devised a very compact high-level computer programming language called APL (the initials of the title of his book A Programming Language [1962]). The language made efficient use of the slow communication speeds of the computer terminals of that time, and APL enjoyed an enthusiastic following.

Iverson left school after ninth grade to work on his family’s farm. He was drafted into the Canadian army in 1942 and transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force the next year. While in the military, he completed his high-school education through correspondence courses. He received a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1950 and a master’s in mathematics from Harvard University in 1951.

After receiving a doctorate in applied mathematics from Harvard in 1954, Iverson taught mathematics there from 1955 to 1960. While teaching a data processing class under Howard Aiken, Iverson became dissatisfied with the existing mathematical notation for describing algorithms and thus devised his own notation. While serving on the staff of IBM’s research division from 1960 to 1980, he synthesized his notation into the APL language. In 1979 Iverson received the A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, for his development of APL.