Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) @ Yale University
A Hero for Don from The Writer’s Almanac Dec 9, 2016
Today is the birthday of computer pioneer Grace Hopper, born in New York City (1906). She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale. Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. She joined the Naval Reserve in 1943, where she was assigned to work on Mark I, a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets. She learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use. She also worked on Mark I’s successors. One day in 1947, a moth got inside the works of Mark II and caused all kinds of problems with the calculations. Eventually, the moth was found and extracted, and one of the operators taped it inside the logbook and wrote below it: “First actual case of bug being found.” Hopper loved to tell that story, so she is often credited with coining the term “bug” to refer to an unexplained computer problem. The word had actually been in use among inventors for many years, to refer to annoying little setbacks and problems. The story made the rounds, though, and the term became popular.
In 1952, Hopper noticed that most computer errors were the result of humans making mistakes in writing programs. So she attempted to solve that problem by writing a new computer language that used ordinary words instead of just numbers. It was one of the first computer languages, and the first designed to help ordinary people write computer programs, and she went on to help develop it into the computer language known as COBOL, or “Common Business-Oriented Language.”
Hopper retired from the U.S. Navy in 1966 with the rank of commander. They asked her to return the following year, to help them standardize their computer languages. By the time she retired for good in 1986, she was the Navy’s oldest acting officer. She was 79 when she retired with the rank of rear admiral.
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