Below is the "official," or "press release" bio. An informal one is in preparation. For a decidedly more informal sketch, go to the Color page and click on Test of text colors. Scroll through the pages for a variety of pictures by or of me. Another collection of photos selects a few aspects of my life. There is a leaning in the pictures toward my interest in photography, with notes about how some of the pictures were taken.
A full bio, containing more than you could possibly want to know, is available
The start of a family history subsite.
Daniel D. McCracken is an author, a former president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Professor of Computer Sciences at the City College, City University of New York.
His Digital Computer Programming (1957) was the first textbook on the subject. Among his 25 titles are standard works on Fortran (1961, 1965, 1974, 1984, and 1988), Algol (1962), Cobol (1963, 1970, 1976, 1988, and 1990), and numerical methods (1964 and 1972). He has also published on the Intel microcomputer programming language PL/M (1978) and the Fourth Generation Language Nomad (1981). He is the editor, with Margaret Mead, Roger Shinn, and Edward Carothers, of To Love or to Perish: The Technological Crisis and the Churches (1972). His books have been translated into 15 languages and have sold about 1.6 million copies.
Counting translations as "books written," McCracken has written 37 books.
Mr. McCracken graduated in 1951 from Central Washington University with degrees and mathematics and chemistry, and earned the M. Div. Degree (cum laude) from Union Theological Seminary (New York) in 1970. After seven years with the General Electric Company in a variety of assignments in computer applications and programmer training, he spent a year at the New York University Atomic Energy Commission Computer Center, then (1959) went into full time consulting and writing on computer subjects. While at NYU he was a graduate student at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He joined the City College Computer Sciences Department in 1981 and chaired it in 1989-91. His consulting clients include the Federal Aviation Agency, Honeywell, Shell Oil, IBM, Intel, Dun & Bradstreet, and Sybase.
McCracken was ACM vice president 1976-78 and president 1978-80. He is a former chairman of the History of Computing Committee of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, a former chairman of the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, a former Director of the Charles Babbage Institute Center for the History of Information Processing, and a four-time ACM National Lecturer. He has lectured in 49 states, Europe, Israel, and Japan, giving over 400 talks on technical and public policy issues.
While ACM vice president he testified before two committees of Congress and the Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU). The CONTU general counsel later stated publicly that McCracken's testimony was pivotal in the Commission's decision to recommend that programs be copyrightable, which Congress subsequently enacted.
He was the Principal Investigator on one grant application to the National Science Foundation, and co-PI on three others. All were funded. His most recent current grant (DUE-0088184, which ended in March 2004) supported dissemination of educational materials for a course in Web site design; Dr. Rosalee Wolfe of DePaul University was co-PI on the grant and coauthor of the book and author of the instructor's manual that disseminate this way of teaching Web site design from a consistent user's point of view.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1985 and a member of the first class of ACM Fellows in 1992. In 1989 he received the Norbert Weiner Award for Social and Professional Responsibility from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. In 1992 the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education gave him their award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. He was elected an honorary member of the Golden Key National Honor Society in 2001.
He was recently (May, 2005) given the School of Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award, "In recognition of your excellent teaching, classroom innovation, student advisement, and service to The City College School of Engineering community."
Volunteer activities include: president of the Board of Education,
Ossining, New York, 1965-66; member of the board of the Institute for
Certification of Computer Professionals while ACM president; chair or team member for three accreditation visits under the auspices of the Computer Sciences
Accreditation Board; reader for the ACM/IEEE-CS joint task force on computer
science curriculum.
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