Cliff Shaw

{{short description|Computer scientist}}

{{for|the Canadian football player|Cliff Shaw (Canadian football)}}{{Infobox person

| name = John Clifford Shaw

| caption = Systems programmer

| birth_date = {{birth date|1922|2|23}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|1991|2|9|1922|2|23}}

| occupation = Systems programmer

| years_active = 1950s–1990s

| known_for = Logic Theorist, General Problem Solver, Information Processing Language, linked list

}}

John Clifford Shaw (February 23, 1922 – February 9, 1991){{cite web |title=John Clifford Shaw Papers |url=http://sirismm.si.edu/archivcenter/findingaids/AC0580.pdf |accessdate=March 14, 2012 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402203336/http://sirismm.si.edu/archivcenter/findingaids/AC0580.pdf |archivedate=April 2, 2012}} was a systems programmer at the RAND Corporation. He is a coauthor of the first artificial intelligence program, the Logic Theorist, and was one of the developers of General Problem Solver (universal problem solver machine) and Information Processing Language (a programming language of the 1950s). Information Processing Language is considered the true "father" of the JOSS language.{{cite book |editor-last=Wexelblat |editor-first=Richard L. |year=1981 |title=History of Programming Languages |publisher=Academic Press |location=New York |isbn=0-12-745040-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofprogram0000hist |url-access=registration}} One of the most significant events that occurred in the programming was the development of the concept of list processing by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon and Cliff Shaw during the development of the language IPL-V.{{cite book |last=Sammet |first=Jean E. |year=1969 |title=Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals |publisher=Prentice Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey |isbn=0-13-729988-5}} He invented the linked list,{{cite book |last1=Newell |first1=A |last2=Shaw |first2=J. C. |title=Papers presented at the February 26-28, 1957, western joint computer conference: Techniques for reliability on - IRE-AIEE-ACM '57 (Western) |chapter=Programming the logic theory machine |date=1957 |pages=230–240 |doi=10.1145/1455567.1455606 |ref=LTM|doi-access=free }} which remains fundamental in many strands of modern computing technology.