History of Science and Engineering Annotation << Back IDEAS PUT FORWARD BY ACADEMICIAN ANDREY PETROVICH ERSHOV: VALIDITY AND CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE I.A. Krayneva The paper presents an academic profile of Andrey Petrovich Ershov (1931–1988), a mathematician, programmer, head of the Programming Department of the Computing Center, Siberian Branch, USSR Academy of Sciences (1957–1988). We focus on some of his prevailing ideas. Ershov was a man of great erudition. A deep insight into the essence of his profession and familiarity with the emerging trends in programming allowed him to succeed not only in his personal academic career. He became a kind of a programming guru. Ershov was one of the first in the USSR to describe the research and production components of programming. He introduced the term "compiler factory", which reflected the idea of the programming technology. Ershov gave a soul to this new profession, saw its beauty and emphasized the role of the human factor in software development. He advocated that programming was of universal cultural value; "Programming is the second literacy" is one of his most famous quotes. No matter who is now implementing his ideas, time has proved that they were true. Keywords: Andrei Petrovich Ershov; compiler factory; history of programming; second literacy; human factor. DOI: 10.25791/intstg.06.2019.699 Contacts: E-mail: cora@iis.nsk.su Pp. 25-31.