Jules I. Schwartz (June 26, 1927 – June 6, 2013) was an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

chiefly known for his creation of the JOVIAL programming language. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

in both

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

. He attended graduate school at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, where he received a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

in Mathematics in 1961. At Columbia Schwartz became acquainted with some early computers at the

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York. In 1954 he joined

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

where he developed

utility software Utility software is a program specifically designed to help manage and tune system or application software. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that b ...

for the JOHNNIAC computer and worked on PACT compiler for the

IBM 704 The IBM 704 is the model name of a large digital computer, digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. Designed by John Backus and Gene Amdahl, it was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The I ...

. In 1955 he joined the

MIT Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...

to work on the SAGE computer. Schwartz went with System Development Corporation (SDC) when it was spun off from RAND in 1957. At SDC he helped develop the JOVIAL programming language in 1959-1960 —the acronym standing for ''Jules Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language'', although Schwartz claimed this was originally a joke. After this he worked on the AN/FSQ-32 computer system and other projects, eventually becoming director of technology at SDC. In 1970 he began working at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

References

External links

Oral history interview with Jules I. Schwartz
(1989).

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Jules 1927 births 2013 deaths American computer scientists United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army personnel of the Korean War Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni RAND Corporation people MIT Lincoln Laboratory people