turing award winner 2006:

For pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution.

frances e. allen joined ibm in 1957. Seven years later she was part of the initial team for the ibm supercomputer lab. she is best known for her theoretical and practical work on program optimization, debugging, ...

control flow analysis, 1970 | subscription
turning points in interaction with computers | open and free

acm has another interesting piece with allen: programming languages, past, present and future, sixteen prominent computer scientists assess our field | acm 50th anniversary:

first programming language?
Allen: SOAP, IBM 650.

first high-level language?
Allen: Fortran, IBM 704

most enjoyable experience?
Allen: That's a tough one! I guess it was when I worked on two very early supercomputers called Stretch and Harvest. They were built in the mid-Sixties. And that was an extraordinary machine, and extraordinary piece of work we were doing. And because of the state of the art, we really were able to invent and use many, many things that have become standard now.
Harvest was a one of a kind machine that was being built for the National Security Agency, so it wasn't well-known at the time. Their work was code breaking, so we invented a language, we actually designed a language which was very high level for describing character string manipulations and analysis. In fact, we invented some notions that really didn't show up until much later, but we didn't write about them because of the nature of the work.

do you have a favorite compiler?
Allen: Well, of course compilers have improved a lot over the years .... My favorite compiler - and I'm going to sound like an old fogey if I keep harking back to those early days, but it was a great time - was the first FORTRAN compiler. It was one of the great accomplishments in computing. I've actually given some talks on that, and a lot of people agree with me.

I wasn't associated with it; it was done by John Backus. It established the paradigm for compiler construction, and organization that has persisted almost to this day. The reason I like it is that it invented so many things. And it set the standard and paradigm for construction of compilers which persists to today.

It was an extraordinary piece of work; the focus of the time was on being able to exploit the hardware, and no one believed that you could write in a higher level language and get performance. But they did it! I think I'd rather not say which is my least favorite. (laughs)

señor tiny has her already included in his HeroIneGal.

remark: after 40 years, the first woman who gets the prize? i don't think that's something the organizers could be proud of; and the npr piece is crap, actually.

Sehr interessant. Schade, dass wir hier an solche Leute nicht so einfach rankommen.