In 2020, our digital world and the software we use to create it are a towering structure, built upon countless layers of abstraction and building blocks — just think about all the translations and interactions that occur from loading a webpage. Whilst abstraction is undoubtedly a great thing, it only works if we’re building on solid ground; if the lower levels are stable and fast. What does that mean in practice? It means low-level, compiled languages, which can be heavily optimised and leveraged to make the most of computer hardware. One of the giants in this area was Frances Allen, who recently passed away in early August. Described by IBM as “a pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms,” she made numerous significant contributions to the field.
Early Days
Via Wikimedia
Trained as a maths teacher, Allen worked at a high school in New York for two years after graduating. She went back to complete a Masters in mathematics and was recruited by IBM Research on campus. Though planning to only stay long enough to pay off her debt and quickly return to teaching, she found herself staying with IBM for the rest of her career, even becoming the first female IBM fellow in 1989.
Allen’s first role at IBM was teaching internal engineers and scientists how to use FORTRAN — apparently a difficult sell to people who at the time were used to programming in assembly, which did just fine thank you very much. In an interview, Allen talks about the resistance from scientists who thought it wasn’t possible for a compiled language to produce cod ..
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