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Biographies
Jean Sammet: Programming Language
Contributor and Historian, and
ACM President
Thomas J. (Tim) Bergin
American University
Jean E. Sammet1 was born on 23
March 1928, in New York City. Her
parents, Harry and Ruth Sammet,
were both lawyers. Harry’s legal prac-
tice included wills and estates; Ruth
stopped working when she married.
Jean and her younger sister, Helen,
attended public elementary schools
Jean E. Sammet, in Manhattan. Jean’s interest in
when she was mathematics surfaced at a very
inducted into young age but she could not attend
the National the Bronx High School of Science be-
Academy of
Engineering. cause it didn’t accept girls. Instead,
Jean went to Julia Richman High
Background of Jean E. Sammet
Born: 23 March 1928, New York City.
Education: Mount Holyoke College, BA (mathemat-
ics), magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, 1948; Univer-
sity of Illinois, MA (mathematics), 1949. Professional
Experience: University of Illinois, teaching assistant,
1948—1951; Metropolitan Life Insurance Company,
actuarial work, 1951—1952; Barnard College, teaching
assistant, 1952—1953; Sperry Gyroscope, engineer,
1953—1958; Sylvania Electric Products, section head,
Mobidic Programming, 1958—1959, and staff consultant
for programming research, 1959-1961; IBM, manager,
Boston Advanced Programming Department: started
and oversaw the development of the formula manipula-
tion language (Formac), 1961—1965; various manage-
ment and staff positions, 1965—1988; senior technical
staff, 1986—1988. Professional Service: Short-Range
Committee (Cobol) 1959—1961; Codasyl Language
Structure Group, 1960—1964; charter member, USASI
X3.4 Committee on Programming Languages; DoD Ada
Distinguished Reviewer, Ada Board and ISO Working
Group on Ada, 1980—1989; organizer and 1st chairman
of SIGSAM (Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation),
1965—1968; Northeast regional representative and ACM
Council member, 1966—1968; chairman of ACM Com-
mittee on SIGs and SICs, 1968—1970; chair, SIGPLAN
(Programming Languages), 1971—1972; ACM vice
president, 1972—1974; ACM president, 1974—1976;
76 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Published by the IEEE Computer Society
Editor: Thomas Haigh
School, an all-girls’ public school, where she took
every available math course.
After examining a number of college catalogs from
women’s colleges, Jean chose Mount Holyoke on the
strength of its mathematics program.2 Jean majored
in mathematics and took enough education courses
to be certified to teach high school mathematics in
New York; she minored in political science. After grad-
uation, Jean pursued graduate studies at the University
of Illinois, receiving her MA in 1949. She was a teaching
assistant in the Mathematics department from 1948 to
1951 while taking courses toward a PhD.
In 1951, Jean began looking for a teaching position.
New York City was not hiring new high school teachers
Chairman, ACM Awards Committee and Fellowship Inves-
tigation Committee, 1976—1978; general and program
chair, History of Programming Languages Conference,
1977—1978; chairman, AFIPS History of Computing Com-
mittee (recommended creation of the Annals of the History
of Computing), 1977—1979; editor in chief, Computing
Reviews and ACM Guide to Computing Literature,
1979—1987; program chair, History of Programming Lan-
guages II, 1991—1993; member of the board of directors
of the Computer Museum, 1983—1993; member of
board and executive committee, Software Patent Insti-
tute, 1992—1998. Honors and Awards: IBM Outstand-
ing Contribution Award for ‘‘Formac’’, 1965; Honorary
Chairman for 2nd Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic
Manipulation, 1971; Mount Holyoke College Alumnae As-
sociation Centennial Award for ‘‘Major contributions to
the technological advance of programming science,’’
1972; one of the first two people elected to honorary
membership in Upsilon Pi Epsilon (national computer
honor society), 1975; elected member of National Acad-
emy of Engineering, 1977; honorary doctor of science,
Mount Holyoke College, 1978; ACM Distinguished Ser-
vice Award, 1985; Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from
the Association for Women in Computing, 1989; ACM
Fellow (initial group), 1994; ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished
Service Award, 1997; Fellow, Computer History Museum,
2001; ACM SIGAda Distinguished Service Award, 2002.
1058-6180/09/$25.00  2009 IEEE
c
[3B2-8] man2009010076.3d 12/2/09 14:3 Page 77
of mathematics and so Jean looked in New
Jersey. The authorities there determined
that she was missing two courses: one in
education and one in the history of New
Jersey—Jean argued that knowledge of
New Jersey did not enhance her ability to
teach mathematics to high school students.
This, however, was one of the few arguments
Jean ever lost, and she decided to seek other
types of employment.3
Professional employment
That fall, Jean took a job with the Metro-
politan Life Insurance Company where she
became part of a group who were training
for actuarial positions. After six months on
the job, trainees were asked if they wanted
to learn about punched-card accounting
machines. In spite of her mathematician’s dis-
dain for practical topics, Jean thought this
sounded more interesting than what she was
doing, and agreed to participate in the in-
house training program. To her utter amaze-
ment, she loved it. Unfortunately, when the
training classes ended, Jean and her fellow
students went back to their old jobs—and
never even saw the electric accounting
machines for which they had been trained.
Finding the work repetitious and unreward-
ing, Jean left Metropolitan and enrolled at Co-
lumbia University to pursue a PhD in
mathematics. After working as a teaching as-
sistant at Barnard College during the
1952—1953 school year, Jean decided that
the academic life was not for her.
Jean’s next position was as a mathemati-
cian working for Sperry Gyroscope in New
York. Responsible for running an analog
computer, she also spent time working on
mathematical analysis problems for various
clients, including the Department of the
Navy’s submarine program. One day, Jean’s
boss mentioned that Sperry was building a
digital computer:
My boss’s boss, my manager, came over to me
one day and said, ‘‘By the way, do you know
we’re building a digital computer?’’ I said,
‘‘I’ve heard of it. I’m not sure I know what
that means.’’ He said, ‘‘We are building a dig-
ital computer, because we can see that that is
the wave of the future.’’ [T]his was a company
that made its living on contracts with the Fed-
eral Government, and in particular with the
military. . . . He said, ‘‘We’re building this
thing. Do you want to be our programmer?’’
I asked the obvious question: ‘‘What is a pro-
grammer?’’ And he said, ‘‘I don’t know, but I
know we need one!’’ I looked at him, and
I said, ‘‘Well, is this anything like working
with punch-cards?’’ And he said, ‘‘I’m not
sure, but I think it might be.’’
So I thought, ‘‘Well, that punch-card stuff
was fascinating. I’m not too inspired with this
submarine stuff. I should at least give this a
try.’’ So I became the programmer. No books,
no manuals, no instructions, no nothing—and
engineers who somehow thought that machine
was going to run itself—and didn’t want a pro-
grammer. Fortunately, my boss, who was very
nice and a very smart engineer, knew they
needed one, even if he didn’t quite understand
what that meant.4
The Sperry Electronic Digital Automatic
Computer (Speedac) was a one-of-a-kind ma-
chine comparable to an IBM 650. It had a
drum memory, a common architecture for
that period. Jean began her life as a program-
mer in early January 1955; her first task was
to write the basic loader for the Speedac.
This 20-line program took three days to tog-
gle into the computer by hand (in binary).
As Sperry hired programmers, Jean became
the group leader of an ‘‘open shop’’ that fo-
cused on scientific and engineering computa-
tions and also produced other system
software. (In an open shop, the programmers
acted as consultants to the engineers and sci-
entists and assisted them in writing and test-
ing their routines. In a closed shop, the
programmers interviewed the engineers and
scientists and did all the programming, test-
ing, and running of the programs—delivering
the computer output to their clients.)
Around this time, Sperry Gyroscope was
working closely with Remington Rand, merg-
ing in 1955 to become Sperry Rand.5 This
exposed Jean to the Univac I computer and
to Grace Hopper. Although Sperry Gyroscope
had a Univac I, it was used by the business
data processing group and not available to
the engineers. Because of the new relation-
ship of Sperry Gyroscope and Remington
Rand, it was possible for Jean and her col-
leagues to get time on a computer at Sperry
Rand’s production facility in Philadelphia.
Since the available test time was at night,
they left Sperry’s office in Great Neck, New
York, in mid-afternoon, took a train into Man-
hattan and caught the 5 p.m. train to Phila-
delphia. After a few hours on the Univac I,
the group would catch the last train to Man-
hattan and arrive home well after midnight.
Grace Hopper’s programming group had
developed more sophisticated software
than the primitive programs developed by
Jean and her colleagues for the Speedac.
January–March 2009 77
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Biographies
The merger also had the bonus of allowing
them to work closely with Hopper and
learn about Grace’s work on high-level
languages—knowledge that would later
allow Jean to contribute to the development
of Cobol and the creation of Formac. Because
Jean’s managers were already teaching there,
she was asked to teach one of the earliest
graduate-level courses in computer program-
ming in the Applied Mathematics depart-
ment of Adelphi College on Long Island in
fall 1956. Although Adelphi did not have a
computer, and despite the fact that few text-
books existed on programming a computer,
Jean created two courses that she taught for
two years.6 Jean enjoyed programming and
working on computers so much, she decided
that she wanted to work for a company that
had computers as its focal point. Sperry only
used computers to support its engineering
disciplines.
Scanning the classified advertisements in
the newspapers proved a problem. At this
time, employment advertisements were sepa-
rated by gender.7 In 1958, the openings for
women were for various types of clerks,
teachers, and housekeepers, and so on. Un-
daunted, Jean started scanning the men’s list-
ings, but found no jobs for ‘‘programmers.’’
Jean finally found an ‘‘engineering’’ position
she thought she would like at Sylvania Elec-
tric Products in Needham, Massachusetts.
During the scheduled interview, when the
available job didn’t seem to be a good fit,
the interviewer sent her to see the person re-
sponsible for Sylvania’s software develop-
ment, Carl Hammer.8 Carl liked Jean’s
experience and hired her to oversee software
development for the Mobidic project.9
The Mobile Digital Computer was part of the
Fieldata project—an Army Signal Corps proj-
ect to build an upward compatible family of
computers. Mobidic was the largest of these
but was small enough to be housed in a mov-
ing van. Given the diverse needs of the army,
the program envisioned a range of comput-
ing capabilities (and sizes) including one
that could be carried in a jeep.10 The software
developed for Mobidic was supposed to run
on all of these computers.
Pioneering Cobol
While directing the development of the
software for Mobidic, Jean represented Sylva-
nia at a meeting at the Pentagon 28-29 May
1959, which explored the creation of a com-
mon ‘‘business’’ language.11,12 Charles Phil-
lips, director of Data Systems Research,
78 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Department of Defense, chaired the meeting.
One outcome was the creation of an Execu-
tive Committee that called itself Codasyl,
which stood for Conference on Data Systems
Languages.13 This Executive Committee cre-
ated a number of subcommittees, among
them a Short-Range Committee to study
existing languages and document their
strengths and weaknesses.14 Jean represented
Sylvania and soon devoted most of her time
to the work of the Short-Range Committee,
including acting as chair of the Statement
Language Task Group, charged with develop-
ing the specific commands for the language.
When the various subcommittees of the
Short-Range Committee failed to develop
sufficient specifications, six people from
three computer manufacturers volunteered
to finish the job, Jean among them.15 The
volunteers spent two weeks in a hotel in
New York City, frequently working around
the clock. Their work was approved by the
Short-Range Committee with only a few
changes. In January 1960, the Executive
Committee of Codasyl approved the report
of the Short-Range Committee, and the new
language was published and implemented
as Cobol.16 Their work completed, the
Short-Range Committee was dissolved and a
new committee was created with many of
the same members.
Joining IBM
When Sylvania management’s plan to le-
verage their Mobidic experience into a series
of commercial products started to falter, Jean
decided it was time to move on—to a com-
pany really dedicated to computing. In
1961, she joined IBM with the task of creat-
ing a new applied R&D group, in the Boston
area, focused on advanced programming
techniques. One of her first projects was to
examine symbol manipulation. She devel-
oped the idea of adding formal mathematics
capabilities to Fortran.17 This led to the cre-
ation of a formula manipulation compiler,
later dubbed Formac. For developing the For-
mac language, Jean received an IBM Out-
standing Contribution award in 1965.18
In addition to her duties as manager of the
Boston Advanced Programming Department,
Jean began researching programming lan-
guages and collecting documentation. This
research led to a series of articles in Computers
and Automation that identified the program-
ming languages in use in the US each of the
years from 1967 to 1973.19 Jean continued
to publish these annual reviews through
[3B2-8] man2009010076.3d 12/2/09 14:3 Page 79

other publications for the years 1974 to

1977.20 In addition, Jean gave talks at profes-
sional conferences and wrote papers for pro-
fessional journals.21
At this time, computers were so new (and
rare) that publishers wanting to cash in on
the new technology were beating the bushes
for potential book authors. Jean was con-
tacted by someone at Prentice Hall who sug-
gested she write a book on Fortran. When
Jean told him that she wasn’t interested in
writing about Fortran, she was asked what
she would like to write about. When she
said she’d like to write about all program-
ming languages, she was told: ‘‘Go ahead!’’
When Jean related this conversation to her
manager, he liked the idea and said that
IBM would support her.22 The book project
began in 1965 and by 1967, she had com-
pleted the manuscript of her seminal 785
page book, Programming Languages: History
and Fundamentals, 23 which became an in-
stant classic in the field, and has served as
a ‘‘desk reference’’ for anyone writing
about programming languages ever since
(see Figure 1).
After completing the book, Jean was reas-
signed to the IBM’s Federal Systems Division.
Working in a senior staff capacity, Jean con-
tinued to work on programming language
projects but also provided assistance and
guidance to the IBM personnel doing work
for government clients, including the NASA
Apollo program in Houston, Texas. By this
time, Jean had become a leading advocate
of high-level programming languages. When Figure 1. The Tower of Babel illustration that was the cover of Jean
confronted by arguments that assembly lan- Sammet’s 1969 book Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals.
guage was more efficient than Fortran, for
example, Jean encouraged users to adopt
a hybrid strategy in which the majority In the late 1970s, Jean also got involved,
of the code would be done in Fortran and in a minor way, with the development of
only the most time-critical sections would be the Ada language.25 Colonel William Whi-
done in assembly language. Indeed, Jean’s ar- taker (USAF) was a proponent of high-level
gument can be summed up in a reply she gave languages in the Department of Defense.26
to a student’s question about the pros and More importantly, Whitaker made strong
cons of using high-level languages: arguments for fewer high-level languages in
the DoD, which was overrun with special-
And there are some disadvantages, includ- purpose programming languages. Whitaker
ing the fact that the compiler may not be led the DoD’s efforts to develop a single
quite as efficient as the very best pro- high-order language for DoD real-time
grammer . . . It is indeed true that the very embedded computer systems. Initially called,
best programmer probably will produce bet-
DoD-1, it was later renamed ‘‘Ada,’’ but not
ter code than the compiler . . . (but) there are
before Whitaker called Jean and inquired:
not that many ‘‘very best programmers,’’
and most of them are working on writing ‘‘Have you ever heard of a language called
the compilers! So don’t give me this argu- Ada?’’ Hearing a negative response from
ment about your payroll program, or your Jean, as an acknowledged expert on program-
trajectory, needing all that competence. ming languages, Ada it became!27 Jean set up
It’s probably better in the compiler.24 committees within IBM to study Ada and was

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Biographies

a member of the DoD Ada Distinguished
Reviewers group. In addition, she was an
original member of the Ada Board (a federal
advisory committee), and organized and
chaired the Policy Committee for the ACM
Special Interest Group on Ada (SIGAda).
[including that] ACM should publish a peri-
odical of truly general interest to all members,
headquarters support of education should be
significantly increased, and activity should
be started leading to a change in the Associa-
tion’s name.35

As ACM president and vice president, Jean is

Professional associations
also credited with helping to restore the orga-
Jean was active in a number of profes-
nization to financial health.36 Following her
sional organizations, among them the Amer-
tenure as president, Jean continued working
ican Federation of Information Processing
within ACM as chairman of the ACM Awards
Societies (AFIPS) and the Association for
and Fellowship Investigation Committees.
Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1965,
In 1977, Jean organized the first AFIPS His-
Jean wrote to the volunteer in charge of the
tory of Computing Committee (HOCC) and
ACM Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Spe-
served as its chairperson.37 HOCC members
cial Interest Committees (SICs) suggesting a
were drawn from the constituent organiza-
new SIC. When she didn’t get a response,
tions and included Bernard Cohen and
she wrote to George Forsythe, ACM president
Erwin Tomash.38 In addition to encouraging
and explained her idea for the new group.
the creation of archives for materials, the
Forsythe replied, ‘‘You are now the Chairman
committee publicized the importance of in-
of the Special Interest Committee on Sym-
dustry professionals’ saving materials.39 The
bolic and Algebraic Manipulation.’’28 During
HOCC also recommended the creation of
the period 1965—1968, Jean organized and
the first successful AFIPS journal: the Annals
chaired SICSAM, and ‘‘appointed herself’’
of the History of Computing.40 In addition to
general and program chairman of the ACM
her other professional and voluntary activ-
Conference on Symbolic and Algebraic Ma-
ities, from January 1979 to December 1987,
nipulation, which was held in Washington,
Jean served as editor in chief of ACM Comput-
D.C. (March 1966). In addition to her duties
ing Reviews and the ACM Guide to Computing
with SICSAM, she was elected as Northeast
Literature.41 Indeed, Eric Weiss credited Jean
regional representative, served as a member
with saving Computing Reviews from ‘‘its
of the ACM Council, and was an ACM
near demise.’’42 During her tenure, the
lecturer.29
Reviews began to use an automated system
When Bernard Galler became president of
to manage the hundreds of review assign-
ACM (1968 to 1970), he asked Jean to serve
ments, reviewers, and reviews for each
as chairman of the ACM Committee on Spe-
month. She established a committee (chaired
cial Interest Groups and Special Interest
by Tony Ralston) to update the Reviews classi-
Committees.30 In this role, Jean was respon-
fication system which resulted in the present
sible for coordinating the activities of 26
system containing four levels. In a retrospec-
technical committees and groups. In 1971,
tive on the history of ACM, Anita Cochran
Jean was elected chair of SIGPLAN but
observed that ‘‘her latest contribution to
resigned after a year when she was elected
ACM was the revitalization of Computing
vice president of ACM; Anthony Ralston
Reviews.’’43
was elected president.31 Ralston created an
ad hoc committee—the first ACM Long
Range Planning Committee (LRPC)—and History of Programming Languages
he asked Jean to serve as its chairman. Conference
In 1974, Jean was elected president of Following a series of invited lectures at
ACM and continued her efforts to guide the UCLA, Jean started thinking that
LRPC.32 Excerpts from the committee’s re-
port were published in December 1974 in it would be interesting to have a conference
in which a person who had been a key per-
the SIGCSE Bulletin as ‘‘Recommended Fu-
son in the creation of the major program-
ture Directions for ACM.’’33 The final report
ming languages (talked) about the creation
was presented in November 1974, and was of the language, why the language was the
published in Communications of the ACM in way it was, and how it got created.44
February 1975.34
Jean contacted potential speakers and got
The report recommend[ed] 50 principles to be positive results. Jean was not thinking of for-
used as guidelines for future ACM activities . . . mal papers at this point, just a discussion by

80 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

[3B2-8] man2009010076.3d 12/2/09 14:3 Page 81
someone involved in the development of the
language. Jean contacted Bob Graham, chair
of ACM SIGPLAN, asked for support, and
offered to serve as general chairman. Jean
remembers that ‘‘since I knew exactly what I
wanted to do with regard to the program,
I appointed myself as the program chairman’’
and began to recruit a program committee
from people she knew who were interested
in programming languages.45 J.A.N. Lee
served as administrative chairman.46 Believ-
ing that having an historian on the commit-
tee was essential to ‘‘getting the right history
and getting the history right,’’ Jean asked
Henry (Hank) Tropp to serve as conference
historian.47
The committee met several times and de-
cided on 13 important languages: Algol,
APL, APT, Basic, Cobol, Fortran, GPSS, JOSS,
Jovial, Lisp, PL/1, Snobol, and Simula. To pro-
vide guidance to the nonhistorian authors,
the committee developed a detailed set of
questions that was credited with contributing
to the overall quality of the papers and
presentations.48
The ACM SIGPLAN History of Program-
ming Languages Conference was held from
1-3 June 1978 in Los Angeles, California.49
The keynote speaker was Grace Murray Hop-
per. Jean Sammet said that ‘‘it took us about
two seconds to decide that she was the appro-
priate person to give the keynote address.’’50
At this conference, Jean gave the talk on
‘‘The Early History of Cobol.’’51
In the ‘‘Editor’s Introduction’’ to History of
Programming Languages, Dick Wexelblat stated:
These proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN His-
tory of Programming Languages (HOPL) confer-
ence are a record, in the words of those who helped
make the history, of a baker’s dozen of the lan-
guages that set the tone for most of today’s pro-
gramming. It is difficult to describe the feeling
that prevailed at the conference. There were
no parallel sessions . . . It was the first confer-
ence I attended where virtually everyone
attended every session.52
A new journal, the Annals of the History of
Computing, was announced at the end of the
HOPL conference.53 Because of timing, reviews
of the first HOPL were contained in the Annals,
vol. 1, issue no. 1, 1978. Assistant editor in
chief Nancy Stern observed:
The proceedings and recordings of this con-
ference will undoubtedly become a major
source of primary material for future histori-
ans attempting to trace the development of
programming languages.54
James J. Horning, a language designer
working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Cen-
ter (PARC) at the time, echoed Wexelblat and
Stern’s optimism:
What was the conference like? It was ex-
tremely informative. . . . Perhaps, even more
important, though, it was enjoyable and lots
of fun. A lot of my heroes were there. As Fred
Brooks said in one of the later sessions, ‘‘The
best thing about this conference is its character
set.’’ The audience . . . made me feel like an
old-timer: most of them had never wired
a plug board; most of them had never
programmed in absolute hexadecimal, be-
cause the assembler was too inefficient. On
the other hand, the conference speakers
made me feel like a newcomer: some of the
talks never got beyond 1959, the year in
which I wrote my first program. . . . I learned
several things . . . about the importance of
going back to primary sources. There were a
number of myths that were debunked, includ-
ing at least two that I’m afraid I’ve been
spreading for years in my programming lan-
guage courses.55
Bernard Galler, the Annals’ first editor in
chief, served as a language coordinator and
as master of ceremonies for the conference
banquet.56
As part of her service on the Annals Edito-
rial Board, Jean created a new department,
Self Study Questions: ‘‘to test your historical
knowledge and to encourage you to think
about history a little differently.’’57 As
would be expected, the first set of questions
focused on programming languages. The
first question was
Name 13 languages that satisfy all of the fol-
lowing criteria: (1) created and in use by
1967, (2) still in use in 1977, and (3) had con-
siderable influence on the field of computing.58
The department ceased publication with
Annals in vol. 13, issue no. 4, 1991.
History of Programming Languages II
The first HOPL conference was intended
to be the beginning, not the end, of any con-
sideration of programming language his-
tory.59 As a result, some years after the end
of that conference, Jean Sammet and J.A.N.
Lee began thinking about a second HOPL
conference, with the intent of building on
what had been learned from the first confer-
ence, and expanding its scope and coverage.
A proposal was developed in 1990, and the
ACM SIGPLAN Executive Committee author-
ized the Second History of Programming
January–March 2009 81
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Biographies

Selected Works
Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals,
Prentice Hall, 1969.
‘‘Introduction to FORMAC’’ (with E.R. Bond), IEEE Trans.
Electronic Computers, vol. EC-13, no. 4, 1964, pp. 386-394.
‘‘The Beginning and Development of FORMAC,’’
in History of Programming Languages—II, T.J. Bergin and
R.G. Gibson, eds., ACM Press/Addison-Wesley, 1996,
pp. 429-469.
‘‘Survey of Formula Manipulation,’’ Comm. ACM,
vol. 9, no. 8, 1966, pp. 555-569.
‘‘Formula Manipulation by Computer,’’ Advances in
Computers, vol. 8, Academic Press, 1967, pp. 47-102.
‘‘Software for Non-Numerical Mathematics,’’ Mathe-
matical Software, Academic Press, 1971, pp. 295-330.
‘‘Revised Annotated Descriptor Based Bibliography on
the Use of Computers for Non-Numerical Mathematics,’’
Symbol Manipulation Languages and Techniques, Proc. IFIP
Working Conf. Symbol Manipulation Languages, North-
Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 358-484.
‘‘The Early History of COBOL,’’ in R.L. Wexelblat, ed.,
History of Programming Languages, Academic Press,
1981, pp. 199-243; ACM DL: http://doi.acm.org/
10.1145/960118.808378.
‘‘Why Ada Is Not Just Another Programming Lan-
guage,’’ Comm. ACM, vol. 29, no. 8, 1986, pp. 722-732.
‘‘An Overview of High-Level Languages,’’ Advances
in Computers, Academic Press, vol. 20, 1981, pp. 199-
259.
‘‘Programming Languages: History and Future,’’
Comm. ACM, vol. 15, no. 7, 1972, pp. 601-610.
‘‘Some Approaches to, and Illustrations of, Program-
ming Language History,’’ Annals of the History of Comput-
ing, vol. 13, no. 1, 1991, pp. 33-50.
‘‘History of IBM’s Technical Contributions to High
Level Programming Languages,’’ IBM J. Research and
Development, vol. 25, no. 5, Sept. 1981, pp. 520-534.
‘‘From HOPL to HOPL-II (1978—1993): 15 Years of
Programming Language Development,’’ in History
of Programming Languages—II, Bergin and Gibson, eds.,
pp. 16-23.
‘‘Farewell to Grace Hopper—End of an Era!’’ Comm.
ACM, vol. 35, no. 4, 1992, pp. 128-131.

Languages Conference (HOPL-II). J.A.N. Lee
agreed to serve as conference chairman.
Jean Sammet served as chair of the Program
Committee. Jean called on several members
of the program committee from the first
HOPL conference, and made a conscious
effort to bring in new, younger people who
shared an interest in examining the past.
The Second History of Programming Lan-
guages Conference was sponsored by ACM
SIGPLAN and held in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, from 20-23 April 1993.60 In her intro-
ductory remarks, Jean observed:
But organizing a history conference is by no
means as simple as organizing a technical
conference dealing with current or recent re-
search in which all the papers are to be con-
tributed and for which there is tremendous
competition to participate. This is primarily
because most professionals in the computer
field prefer to concentrate on current and fu-
ture work rather than looking backward to
what they have accomplished.
The study of various aspects of computing
history is not merely an intellectual exercise;
it shows us how we reached our current con-
dition, indicates effective approaches as well
as past errors, and provides perspective and
insight for the future, and a surer sense of
how to get there.61
At the urging of the Program Committee,
Jean provided an overview of language
developments since HOPL I.62 Jean also re-
lated her experiences in developing the For-
mac language while at IBM.18,63
Epilogue: HOPL III
In 2004, Barbara Ryder and Brent Hail-
pern, both former SIGPLAN chairs, started
the process to create the third History of Pro-
gramming Languages Conference by forming
a Program Committee.44,64 Jean had wisely
included them on the HOPL II Program Com-
mittee with the hope that they would con-
tinue the HOPL legacy. HOPL III, sponsored
by SIGPLAN and SIGSOFT, took place in
San Diego, California, 9-10 June 2007.65 Dur-
ing the opening of the conference, Jean was
recognized for her pioneering efforts to pre-
serve the history of programming lan-
guages.66 When I asked Ryder what Jean
meant to the programming language com-
munity, she replied:
Jean Sammet is a ‘‘one-woman force’’ that
established the ACM SIGPLAN History of Pro-
gramming Languages conferences. . . . Her zeal
for this project, her energy in organizing and
seeing two HOPL meetings through to com-
pletion in excellent reference books, and her
dogged devotion to maintaining the quality
of the historical accounts produced, were out-
standing. The latest HOPL meeting . . . would
not have been held without its organizers
having benefited from training under Jean

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Web Extras
For additional information, see the
‘‘Further Reading’’ sidebar at http://www.
computer.org/portal/pages/annals/content/
webextras.html.
on her HOPL-II Program Committee. [Jean is]
a remarkable woman of great energy and a
wonderful mentor.67
Retirement, per se
Given Jean’s industrious nature, no one
who knew her believed that she would ever
retire. However, motivated by changes at
IBM, she officially retired at the end of
1988. In addition to consulting, she served
on the board of directors, Computer History
Museum, from 1983 to 1993 and on the
board and executive committee of the Soft-
ware Patent Institute from 1991 to 1998.
Jean maintains the largest collection of mate-
rials on programming languages in existence,
which will be housed at the Charles Babbage
Institute upon her demise.
For her lifetime of effort, as a programmer,
manager, leader, and historian, Jean received
the ACM’s Distinguished Service Award in
1985. In 1989, she received the Augusta Ada
Lovelace Award from the Association for
Women in Computing. In 1994, she was
part of the initial class of ACM Fellows: For
dedicated, tireless and dynamic leadership in ser-
vice to ACM and the computing community [and
for] advancing the art and science of computer
programming languages and recording its his-
tory.68 That says it all.
References and notes
1. Although Jean has been highlighted in numerous
articles in the technical media, the best sources
are oral histories by Janet Abbate and by Tim
Bergin. The opening paragraphs of this biogra-
phy follow the Abbate oral history. Abbate plans
to archive the history at the IEEE History Center.
A faculty member at Virginia Tech, Abbate can
be contacted at abbate@vt.edu. My oral history
of Jean focuses on her ACM activities; see the
ACM Digital Library: http://portal.acm.org/
citation.cfm?id=1141880.1243440.
2. In the Abbate oral history, Jean mentioned that,
in 1944, few potential students visited colleges
prior to admission because of the limitations
imposed during World War II.
3. Abbate, p. 5.
4. Abbate, p. 10.
5. D.E. Lundstrom, A Few Good Men from Univac,
MIT Press, 1987, p. 7.
6. Her second year of teaching (1957—1958) was
made easier by the publication of D. McCracken’s
Digital Computer Programming (Wiley, 1957) and
by the availability of the Fortran language.
7. See ‘‘Employment Ads Said to Show Bias: 75
Advertisers Are Cited by Federal Commission,’’
New York Times, 10 Aug. 1966, p. 22; ‘‘12
Women Picket Times, Charging Segregation in
Ads,’’ NYT, July 1968, p. 19; ‘‘Designation of Sex
in Want Ads Studied,’’ NYT, 8 Feb. 1969, p. 27.
8. See T. Bergin, ‘‘Carl Hammer (1914—2004),’’
Biographies, IEEE Annals of the History of Com-
puting, vol. 28, no. 2, 2006, pp. 81-86.
9. For more on the Mobidic project, see
W. Humphrey, ‘‘Mobidic and Fieldata,’’ Annals
of the History of Computing, vol. 9, no. 2, 1987,
pp. 137-182.
10. For perspective, Digital Equipment Corp.
released the PDP-8 minicomputer in 1965, MITS
introduced the Altair (in kit form) in 1975, and
Apple introduced the Apple II in 1977.
11. About 40 representatives from computer manu-
facturers, government and nongovernment
users, and consultants were in attendance. For
additional background, see Sammet, Program-
ming Languages: History and Fundamentals,
Prentice Hall, 1969, p. 330 ff, and ‘‘The Early
History of COBOL,’’ History of Programming Lan-
guages, R.L. Wexelblat, ed., Academic Press,
1981, pp. 199-277; ACM DL: http://doi.acm.org/
10.1145/800025.1198367.
12. Although a few scientific languages had
been developed, such as Fortran, the only
commercial language was Flow-Matic, devel-
oped for the Univac under Grace Hopper’s
leadership at Remington Rand. See Sammet,
‘‘Farewell to Grace Hopper—End of an Era!’’
Comm. ACM, vol. 35, no. 4, 1992, pp. 128-
131; ACM DL: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/
129852.214846.
13. Most references refer to Codasyl as an industry
consortium; however, according to Sammet,
‘‘Codasyl as an organization never existed.’’ See
Sammet, ‘‘The Early History of COBOL,’’ p. 265.
14. This was the official name of the committee
that created the original Cobol language. The
committee was later renamed ‘‘the Cobol
Committee.’’ See Sammet, ‘‘The Early History
of COBOL,’’ p. 210.
15. Jean Sammet and Vernon Reeves from Sylvania,
William Selden and Gertrude Tierney from IBM,
and Howard Bromberg and Norman Discount
from RCA.
16. Department of Defense, Cobol, Initial Specifica-
tions for a Common Business Oriented Language,
January–March 2009 83
 [3B2-8] man2009010076.3d 12/2/09 14:3 Page 84
Biographies
#1960 0-552133, US Government Printing
Office, April 1960.
17. The example given in Sammet (see Ref. 18) is
that the system would manipulate formulas of
the type done in high school and college
mathematics—for example, expansion of
expressions, formal differentiation, and substitu-
tion in contrast to the numeric calculation capa-
bilities of languages like Fortran.
18. Formac (Formula Manipulation Compiler) was
the first language for symbolic mathematics
that had significant use. See J.E. Sammet, ‘‘The
Beginning and Development of FORMAC,’’
History of Programming Languages—II, T.J. Bergin
and R.G. Gibson, eds., ACM Press/Addison-
Wesley, 1996, pp. 429-469.
19. See J.E. Sammet, ‘‘Roster of Programming
Languages—1967,’’ Computers and Automation,
vol. 16, no. 6, 1967, pp. 80-82; ‘‘RPL—1968,’’
C&A, vol. 17, no. 6, 1968, pp. 120-123;
‘‘RPL—1969,’’ C&A, vol. 18, no. 7, 1969,
pp. 153-158; ‘‘RPL—1970,’’ C&A, vol. 19,
no. 6B, 1970, pp. 6-11, 21; ‘‘RPL—1971,’’ C&A,
vol. 20, no. 6B, 1971, pp. 6-13; ‘‘RPL—1972,’’
C&A, vol. 21, no. 6B, 1972, pp. 1-11.
20. ‘‘RPL—1973,’’ Computing Reviews, vol. 15,
no. 4, 1974, pp. 147-160; ‘‘RPL—1974-75,’’
Comm. ACM, vol. 19, no. 12, 1976, pp. 655-
669; and ‘‘RPL—1976-77,’’ ACM SIGPLAN
Notices, vol. 13, no. 11, 1978, pp. 56-85.
21. For example, ‘‘Problems in, and a Pragmatic
Approach to, Programming Language Measure-
ment,’’ AFIPS 1971 Fall Joint Computer Conf.,
AFIPS Press, 1971, pp. 243-251; ‘‘Programming
Languages: History and Future,’’ Comm. ACM,
vol. 15, no. 7, 1972, pp. 601-610; and ‘‘History
of IBM’s Technical Contributions to High Level
Programming Languages,’’ IBM J. R&D, vol. 25,
no. 5, 1981, pp. 520-534.
22. Abbate, p. 49.
23. J.E. Sammet, Programming Languages: History
and Fundamentals, Prentice Hall, 1969.
24. Abbate, p. 57; see also Bergin, oral history, Day
Three, 11 Apr. 2006, pp. 9-12.
25. For a history of Ada, see W.A. Whitaker,
‘‘ADA—The Project: The DoD High Order Lan-
guage Working Group,’’ History of Programming
Languages, Bergin and Gibson, pp. 173-232.
26. Bergin, oral history, Day Four, 18 Apr. 2006,
pp. 1-4.
27. Ibid., p. 1; see also Abbate, oral history, p. 58.
28. Bergin, oral history, Day One, 28 Mar. 2006,
pp. 1-2.
29. At this time, ACM local chapters were repre-
sented by regional representatives.
30. At this time, most ACM Council members were
elected regional representatives. Jean urged a
change in the ACM constitution that created a
84 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
more balanced approach—where special inter-
ests were better represented and which made
the chair for SIG/SICs a member of the Council.
31. The vice president has the statutory responsibil-
ities to oversee the numerous ACM committees
and boards.
32. In ‘‘ACM: The Past 15 Years, 1972—1987,’’
Comm. ACM, vol. 30, no. 19, 1987, p. 869,
Anita Cochran states that ‘‘Sammet was the first
woman to lead ACM and became president
after many years of activity in the association,
particularly in the SIG movement.’’
33. ACM SIGCSE Bull., Computer Science Education,
vol. 6, no. 4, 1974, pp. 5-15.
34. ‘‘Recommended Future Directions for ACM:
Summary of Final Report of Long Range Plan-
ning Committee May 1973 to November
1974,’’ Comm. ACM, vol. 18, no. 2, 1975,
pp. 77-90.
35. Ibid., p. 77.
36. J.A.N. Lee, Computer Pioneers, p. 603: ‘‘In those
positions she played a key role in restoring
ACM to a healthy financial condition.’’
37. Bergin, oral history, Day Three, 11 Apr. 2006,
pp. 14-17.
38. For an overview of HOCC activities, see J.E.
Sammet, ‘‘General AFIPS History of Computing
Activities,’’ Annals of the History of Computing,
vol. 1, no. 1, 1979, pp. 6-8.
39. See AFIPS, ‘‘Preserving Computer-Related
Source Materials,’’ Annals of the History of Com-
puting, vol. 2, no. 1, 1980, pp. 4-6. Note:
Nancy Stern prepared the brochure as part of
the HOCC activities noted previously.
40. The premier issue (vol. 1, no. 1, July 1979) con-
tains a number of historically important docu-
ments, among them a foreword by A.
Finerman, chairman of the AFIPS Publications
Committee; ‘‘About This Issue,’’ by the editor in
chief, Bernard Galler; and ‘‘General AFIPS His-
tory of Computing Activities,’’ by J.E. Sammet,
which provides a history of Annals’ gestation.
See also, Annals of the History of Computing,
vol. 2, no. 1, 1980, pp. 75-76. Note: AFIPS
created a trial issue of a journal called ABACUS
in 1977.
41. Bergin, oral history, Day Four, 18 Apr. 2006,
pp. 4-7.
42. E.A. Weiss, ‘‘Commentaries on the Past 15
Years,’’ Comm. ACM, vol. 30, no. 10, 1987,
p. 881.
43. A. Cochran, ‘‘ACM: The Past 15 Years,
1972—1987,’’ Comm. ACM, vol. 30, no. 10,
1987, p. 869.
44. For a full discussion of the history of the HOPL
conferences, see T.J. (Tim) Bergin, ‘‘A History of
the History of Programming Languages,’’ Comm.
ACM, vol. 50, no. 5, 2007, pp. 69-74.
[3B2-8] man2009010076.3d 12/2/09 14:3 Page 85
45. Bergin, oral history, Day Four, 18 Apr. 2006, p. 9.
46. John A. N. Lee served as editor in chief of the
Annals from 1987 to 1995.
47. Hank Tropp was a faculty member in the Hum-
boldt State University (California) Department
of Mathematics and had done a number of oral
interviews of computer pioneers for the Ameri-
can Federation of Information Processing Soci-
eties (AFIPS); Tropp also served as Annals first
Reviews editor and was a member of the first
editorial board.
48. J.A.N. Lee, ed., ‘‘Guidelines for the Documenta-
tion of Segments of the History of Computing,’’
Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 13,
no. 1, 1991, pp. 51-62.
49. The papers from this conference are available in
the ACM Digital Library at http://portal.acm.org/
toc.cfm?id=800025. The edited papers and tran-
scripts, as well as other conference materials
were published as R.L. Wexelblat, History of Pro-
gramming Languages, Academic Press, 1981.
50. Bergin, oral history of Jean E. Sammet, Day
Four.
51. Wexelblat, History of Programming Languages,
pp. 199-243.
52. Ibid., p. xiii.
53. The Annals of the History of Computing was orig-
inally sponsored by the American Federation of
Information Processing Societies (AFIPS).
54. N. Stern, ‘‘From an Historian’s Perspective,’’
Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 1, no. 1,
1979, pp. 68-69.
55. J.J. Horning, ‘‘Additional Viewpoints,’’ Annals of
the History of Computing, vol. 1, no. 1, 1979,
pp. 69-71. [emphasis added]
56. Other members of the HOPL Program Commit-
tee who also served on the Annals editorial
board were Robert F. Rosin and Henry Tropp.
See A. Akera, ‘‘The Life and Work of Bernard A.
Galler (1928—2006),’’ IEEE Annals of the History
of Computing, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 4-14.
57. B.A. Galler, ‘‘About this Issue,’’ Annals of the
History of Computing, vol. 5, no. 3, 1983,
p. 223.
58. J.E. Sammet, ‘‘Self-Study Questions,’’ Annals of
the History of Computing, vol. 5, no. 3, 1983,
pp. 302-303.
59. This discussion follows the editor’s and general
introductions in Bergin and Gibson, A History of
Programming Languages—II, pp. vii-x.
60. The languages selected were Ada, Algol 68,
C, C++, CLU, Discrete Event Simulation Lan-
guages, Formac, Forth, Icon, Lisp, Monitors
and Concurrent Pascal, Pascal, Prolog, and
Smalltalk.
61. J.E. Sammet, ‘‘General Introduction,’’ in Bergin
and Gibson, p. x.
62. J.E. Sammet, ‘‘From HOPL to HOPL II
(1978—1993): 15 Years of Programming Lan-
guage Development,’’ History of Programming
Languages—II, Bergin and Gibson, pp. 16-24.
63. The unedited papers are available in the ACM
Digital Library at http://portal.acm.org/toc.
cfm?id=154766. For the entire proceedings, see
Bergin and Gibson, A History of Programming
Languages—II.
64. See http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL-III.html.
65. The languages presented were AppleScript,
BETA, C++, Emerald, Erlang, Haskell, HP Fortran,
Lua, Modula-2 and Oberon, Self, Statecharts,
and. ZPL. For an overview, see: T.J. (Tim) Ber-
gin, ‘‘History of Programming Languages Con-
ference (HOPL III),’’ in Events and Sightings,
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 29,
no. 3, 2007, pp. 64-65.
66. Edited papers are available in the ACM Digital
Library at http://portal.acm.org/toc.
cfm?id=1238844&type=proceeding&coll=
portal&dl=ACM.
67. B. Ryder, personal communication, 4 Nov. 2007.
68. See http://fellows.acm.org/fellow_citation.
cfm?id=1004423&srt=alpha&alpha=S.
Readers may contact Tim Bergin about this article at
tbergin@american.edu.
Contact department editor Thomas Haigh at
annals-biographies@computer.org.
January–March 2009 85