(j3.2006) Dan McCracken

[Bill Long]

On 8/21/11 5:50 PM, jeanne-martin at comcast.net wrote:
> According to the New York Times, Daniel D. McCracken, the first
> best-selling author of books that taught people how to use computers,
> died on July 30 in New York, age 81.
>

A name from the distant past.  Thanks for posting, Jeanne.

> He taught the first computer class I attended, when I had a summer job
> at General Electric. Up until then I had encountered no academic mention
> of computers except in a number theory class where they stated that
> number systems with bases other than 10 were useful in computers.
>
> His first book was "Digital Computer Programming" where he discussed a
> mythical computer called "TYDAC". His biggest seller was "A Guide to
> Fortran Programming", published in 1961 and selling 300,000 copies.
>

Indeed, McCracken's book was (initially) the book assigned for my intro 
programming class as  college Freshman.  Until the instructor came in 
the first day of class, explained that there were 3 types of text books:

1) ones that teach you useful things
2) ones that teach you nothing
3) ones that teach you wrong things,

and declared that McCracken's book was type 3.  We were told to return 
it to the bookstore and purchase the IBM FORTRAN Language Reference 
Manual instead. That was our new "textbook".    In retrospect, my first 
step down the slippery slope of involvement with technical language 
specifications.  For which McCracken was, quite unintentionally, a key 
enabler.

Cheers,
Bill


>

-- 
Bill Long                                           longb at cray.com
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