Cowlishaw joined IBM in 1974 as an electronic engineer but is best known as a programmer and writer. He is known for designing and implementing the
Rexx programming language (1984),[2][3] his work on colour perception and image processing that led to the formation of
JPEG (1985),[4] the
STETfolding editor (1977), the
LEXX live parsing editor with
colour highlighting for the
Oxford English Dictionary (1985),[5] electronic publishing,
SGML applications, the IBM
Jargon FileIBMJARG (1990),[6] a programmable
OS/2 world globe PMGlobe (1993),[7]MemoWiki based on his GoServeGopher/
http server,[8] and the
Java-related
NetRexx programming language (1997).
Cowlishaw has worked on aspects of
decimal arithmetic; his proposal for an improved Java BigDecimal class (
JSR 13) is now included in Java 5.0, and in 2002, he invented a refinement of
Chen–Ho encoding known as
densely packed decimal encoding. Cowlishaw's decimal arithmetic specification formed the proposal for the decimal parts of the
IEEE 754 standard, as well as being followed by many implementations, such as
Python and
SAP NetWeaver. His decNumber decimal package is also available as open source under several licenses and is now part of
GCC, and his proposals for decimal hardware have been adopted by IBM and others. They are integrated into the
IBM POWER6 and
IBM System z10 processor cores, and in numerous IBM software products such as
DB2,
TPF (in
Sabre),
WebSphere MQ, operating systems, and C and PL/I compilers.[9]
Other activities
Cowlishaw wrote an emulator for the
Acorn System 1, and collected related documentation.[10] Outside computing, he caved in the UK, New England, Spain,[11] and Mexico
[12] and continues to cave and hike in Spain. He is a life member of the
National Speleological Society (NSS), wrote articles in the 1970s and 1980s on battery technology and on the shock strength of caving ropes, and designed
LED-based
caving lamps.[13]
His current programming projects include MapGazer.[14] and PanGazer[15]
Publications (primary author)
The NetRexx Language, Cowlishaw, Michael F.,
ISBN0-13-806332-X, Prentice-Hall, 1997
The REXX Language, Cowlishaw, Michael F., in English:
ISBN0-13-780651-5, (second edition) 1990; in German:
ISBN3-446-15195-8, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1988; in Japanese:
ISBN4-7649-0136-6, Kindai-kagaku-sha, 1988
LEXX – A programmable structured editor, Cowlishaw, Michael F., IBM Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1987, IBM Reprint order number G322-0151