Talk:Grace Hopper

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Contents 1 bug 2 compiler 3 Compilers 4 Fond memories of Grace Hopper 5 Navy Retirement 6 Earliest reference for Hopper's Bug 7 First programmer?

[edit] bug

It is true that the word "bug" did not originate with Grace Hopper, but she is part of the mythology of the application of the word to computers, so some mention of her connection with computer bugs is probably in order in this article. See this web site:

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/first_computer_bug.htm

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Egern (talk • contribs) 19:31, 29 November 2001 (UTC)

Good site! LarryW 19:44 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] compiler

The page entry for Grace Hopper states that "She was ... the developer of the first compiler for a computer programming language." But the page entry for compilers, called "Compiler," states "Several experimental compilers were developed in the 1950s, but the FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first complete compiler, in 1957." Was Hopper a member of the Backus team? If so or if not, may I suggest that some clarification is needed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zephyr1986 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compilers

My understanding is that her team produced compilers that predated FORTRAN. The source of the confusion is likely n-fold:

-- You have to define "compiler" somehow, and there were a number of primitive "automatic programming" attempts that probably fell into the fuzzy area.

-- You have to define "complete". It may be that Hopper's products required some manual post-processing, eg.

-- The statement about FORTRAN may be referring to a COMMERCIAL compiler, or one that was "generally available". Often statements start well-qualified (eg, "the first successful commercial compiler") and the qualification is lost in editing or requoting.

It certainly would be nice to settle this, while some of the players are still alive. --drh 21:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

few pepol have done as much to change th world as Grace Murray Hopper in her work with the first computers , she put us on the way to making computers available to everyone . In 1952 , She invented the first computer compiler . she was the first person to receive the computer Sciences Man of the Year Award 1969.

[edit] Fond memories of Grace Hopper

I had the pleasure(?) of working with Commander Hopper while at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego in the early 1960's. We had developed a scientifically oriented compiler based on ALGOL 58, which saw some success in a variety of military applications for the Navy's command and control shipboard applications. This was called NELIAC and the operating system was called NELOS.

Little did I know that Commander Hopper thought programming should be done in English not with Mathematical symbols, so we got a royal roasting from her at the time since she had been so important to the development of COBOL which has a very wordy syntax.

She delighted in pulling an 11 inch long piece of wire from her purse, waving it around and saying "do you realize that light travels only this far in one nanosecond?" We all thought -- so? Well she said, these enormous computers you use today are all like Dodo birds: the computers of the future will need to be so small that they will achieve the fastest computation times possible because of the shortest connections possible. And, the future of computing lies with networked very small very fast computers which will talk to each other.

Now, at the time, we were using a very high speed link using microwave to connect ships' computers together, and since the state of the art telephone modems at the time could barely do 1200 bps the idea struck us as incomprensible.

But, the grande dame of computing saw further than we did. Remember, the computer chip had not been invented yet, but there were some integrated circuits in the laboratories and I always presumed she read about these and instantly realized that someday a computer would fit on a chip. And, even more amazing was her perception about networking which is still relevant more than 40 years later. --Arthur 07:47, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

It goes further than you think. What you just described there ("the future of computing lies with networked very small very fast computers which will talk to each other") perfectly describes BlueGene (which my research group is part of) →Raul654 09:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

My mom got to meet Admiral Hopper once. She gave my mom a nanosecond. That is, she gave my mom a piece of wire, that was the exact length of the distance that light travels in one nanosecond--Kirk Surber 15:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What delightful memories! Informative and humanizing...thank you! rewinn 06:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Navy Retirement

I corrected some information about ADM Hopper's Navy retirement(s) but I am researching a further item; I believe that after her recall in 1971 she had the status of Retired On Active Duty, as did ADM Hyman Rickover for much of his Naval service. I am trying to verify this and will make corrections necessary when I have. Ray Trygstad 20:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest reference for Hopper's Bug

There is an email message from 1981 that recounts the story of Adm. Hopper taking the bug out of the relay ... it is the earliest recorded version of the story that I can find. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dennette (talk • contribs) 15:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Emails generally aren't a reliable source by Wikipedia standards, so I've added a Time magazine citation to the account. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First programmer?

What year did Grace Hopper first write a program for the Mark I? And what was the program? Robert K S 13:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

She was not the first programmer of the Mark I. According to a transcribed remark at the first History of Programming Languages conference, she was the third programmer of the Mark I (and liked to be introduced as such). The first two programmers were Richard Milton Block and Robert Campbell. I'll edit the page to reflect this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Espertus (talk • contribs) 01:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I changed the ref to a {{cite book}}, and moved it to the first paragraph, which is where the correction and reference should have been made ... also deleted redundant second mention. --72.75.126.37 07:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I missed the first reference and am new to citing. Espertus 00:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)