John Backus, whose <A HREF="http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/03/20/obit.backus.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech">development of the Fortran programming language</A> in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82.

Prior to Fortran, computers had to be meticulously "hand-coded"--programmed in the raw strings of digits that triggered actions inside the machine.