About Cliff Shaw
Lived 1922 – 1991 (aged 68). Cliff Shaw was an engineer.
John Clifford Shaw (February 23, 1922 – February 9, 1991) 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). Shaw is considered the true "father" of the JOSS language. 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. He invented the linked list, which remains fundamental in many strands of modern computing technology.
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Important facts
People in Cliff Shaw's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Cliff Shaw's
Frequently asked questions
Who was Cliff Shaw?
computer scientist (1922–1991)
When was Cliff Shaw born?
Cliff Shaw was born on 23 February 1922.
When did Cliff Shaw die?
Cliff Shaw died on 9 February 1991.
What was Cliff Shaw's occupation?
Cliff Shaw was an engineer.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Cliff Shaw. https://biography.guide/cliff-shaw/
MLA: "Cliff Shaw." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/cliff-shaw/.
Chicago: "Cliff Shaw." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/cliff-shaw/.
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