Ada Lovelace Day: Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and as such, I've volunteered to write a blog post about a woman in technology.
I decided to write about Grace Hopper, as she is a person that the computer engineers often hold up as "one of their own". Hopper is sometimes called "Amazing Grace", and with good reason.
She earned BS in physics and math at Vassar in 1928. She later earned MS in those fields and a PhD in math from Yale. After that, she went on to become an associate professor at Vassar.
Hopper left Vassar to volunteer for WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) as part of the US Naval Reserve during World War II. She worked at Harvard, programming the Mark I calculator, and co-authored some papers on the use of the calculator. After the war, she was unable to transfer to the Navy, but opted to stay at Harvard as a civilian research fellow. She turned down a full professorship at Vassar to do this.
Hopper is best known as the inventor of the compiler. Anyone who ever has used a high level computer programming language has this woman to thank (as well as those of us who have ever used anything developed with a high level language, which is everyone reading this blog). She also worked on the standardization on high level languages, being pulled out of retirement by the Navy to do so (twice!). When she did finally retire permanently, she was the oldest member of the Navy. She was given the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, which is the highest non-combat medal given by the Department of Defense.
Hopper, during her lifetime, often worked with private industry along with the Navy. She had the vision that computers could useful to a large audience by pushing forward the idea that programming should be easier than trying to use assembler code. She also pushed forward on many of the concepts of good software programming as well as making computers that would be commercially viable and practical.
I have two favorite trivia bits about Hopper:
1 - She is credited with coining the term "debugging". At one point, she found a moth into the Mark II's relays, causing it to work improperly. The story about the moth is true, but hardware problems with the calculators were already called bugs. She did, however, extend the term to software.
2- She also stated, "It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
After her death, the Navy commissioned a ship which was named after her.
I decided to write about Grace Hopper, as she is a person that the computer engineers often hold up as "one of their own". Hopper is sometimes called "Amazing Grace", and with good reason.
She earned BS in physics and math at Vassar in 1928. She later earned MS in those fields and a PhD in math from Yale. After that, she went on to become an associate professor at Vassar.
Hopper left Vassar to volunteer for WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) as part of the US Naval Reserve during World War II. She worked at Harvard, programming the Mark I calculator, and co-authored some papers on the use of the calculator. After the war, she was unable to transfer to the Navy, but opted to stay at Harvard as a civilian research fellow. She turned down a full professorship at Vassar to do this.
Hopper is best known as the inventor of the compiler. Anyone who ever has used a high level computer programming language has this woman to thank (as well as those of us who have ever used anything developed with a high level language, which is everyone reading this blog). She also worked on the standardization on high level languages, being pulled out of retirement by the Navy to do so (twice!). When she did finally retire permanently, she was the oldest member of the Navy. She was given the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, which is the highest non-combat medal given by the Department of Defense.
Hopper, during her lifetime, often worked with private industry along with the Navy. She had the vision that computers could useful to a large audience by pushing forward the idea that programming should be easier than trying to use assembler code. She also pushed forward on many of the concepts of good software programming as well as making computers that would be commercially viable and practical.
I have two favorite trivia bits about Hopper:
1 - She is credited with coining the term "debugging". At one point, she found a moth into the Mark II's relays, causing it to work improperly. The story about the moth is true, but hardware problems with the calculators were already called bugs. She did, however, extend the term to software.
2- She also stated, "It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
After her death, the Navy commissioned a ship which was named after her.