James Wesley Graham, OC was a Canadian professor of computer science at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. Graham was born on January 17, 1932, in Copper Cliff, Ontario. His interest in computing developed while studying math and physics at the University of Toronto. After working at IBM as a systems engineer, Graham accepted a position at the University of Waterloo in 1959 becoming one of the first computer science professors at the university. In 1962, Graham was named the director of Waterloo's Computing Centre when it was established as a separate entity from Department of Mathematics. In 1965, Waterloo undergraduate

James G. Mitchell James George Mitchell is a Canadian computer scientist. He has worked on programming language design and implementation ( FORTRAN WATFOR, Mesa, Euclid, C++, Java), interactive programming systems, dynamic interpreting and compiling, document p ...

wrote a paper on how to create a teaching compiler for Fortran. Graham created a team for Mitchell to create the compiler, which was eventually known as

WATFOR WATFIV (Waterloo FORTRAN IV), developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR. WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. WATFIV was i ...

, and was eventually to be used by students at 420 postsecondary institutions around the world. WATFOR was followed by similar teaching compilers, like

WATBOL WATBOL is a teaching compiler for the COBOL programming language developed in 1969 at the University of Waterloo. The compiler was a companion product, built under the design philosophy, of Waterloo's earlier, widely used WATFOR teaching comp ...

, for teaching

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

, and

WATIAC Since student programs were only run a few times, possibly only once, after they had been successfully written, and debugged, efficient running of those programs was of relatively little importance, compared with quick compilation and relatively g ...

for teaching the principles of

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

programming. Graham is credited with convincing leading computer manufacturers to donate equipment to Waterloo. A total of $35 million

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

in donated equipment is credited to Graham's efforts. Graham, some of his colleagues, and students and former students of theirs, formed the University spin-off software company

Watcom Watcom International Corporation was a software company, which was founded in 1981 by Wes Graham and Ian McPhee. Founding staff (Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler and McPhee) were formerly members of Professor Graham's Computer Systems Group at the Uni ...

, which was sold to Powersoft in 1994, for $100 million CAD. Powersoft was then acquired by

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software relating to relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; SAP ceased using the Syba ...

in 1994 which was subsequently acquired by

SAP SE Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a s ...

in 2010. Graham was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, in July 1999, but died of cancer before the formal award ceremony in September 1999. A road on the north campus is named Wes Graham Way. The J.W. Graham Medal for excellence in Computer Science was named in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Wes 1932 births 1999 deaths Canadian computer scientists Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Academics from Greater Sudbury Officers of the Order of Canada