Michael A. Jackson

Michael Anthony Jackson (born 16 February 1936) é um cientista da computação britânico e consultor independente de computação em London, England. Ele também é professor visitante de pesquisa na Open University no UK. Biography Born in Birmingham to Montagu M. Jackson and Bertha (Green) Jackson, Jackson was educated at Harrow School in Harrow, London, England. There he was taught by Christopher Strachey and wrote his first program under Strachey's guidance. From 1954 to 1958, he studied classics (known as "Greats") at Merton College, Oxford; a fellow student, two years ahead of him, was C. A. R. Hoare. They shared an interest in logic, which was studied as part of Greats at Oxford. After his graduation in 1961, Jackson started as computer science designer and consultant for Maxwell Stamp Associates in London. Here he designed, coded and tested his first programs for IBM and Honeywell computers, working in assembler. There Jackson found his calling, as he recollected in 2000: "Although I was a careful designer — drawing meticulous flowcharts before coding — and a conscientious tester, I realised that program design was hard and the results likely to be erroneous..." Information system design was in need of a structured approach. In 1964, Jackson joined the new consultancy firm John Hoskyns and Company in London, before founding his own company Michael Jackson Systems Limited in 1971. In the 1960s, he had started his search for a "more reliable and systematic way of programming." He contributed to the emerging modular programming movement, meeting Larry Constantine, George H. Mealy and several others on a 1968 symposium. In the 1970s, Jackson developed Jackson Structured Programming (JSP). In the 1980s, with John Cameron, he developed Jackson System Development (JSD). Then, in the 1990s, he developed the Problem Frames Approach.