Dec. 9, 1906 - 1992
Overview:
A woman invented computer coding? No, she couldn’t have. But she did. Grace Hopper was one of the world’s most important computer pioneers, who knew from the beginning of computer development that she was onto a big thing. She dedicated her life to developing what we consider as an everyday “must-have”.
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Grace Hopper
This woman invented what brought you this page... Computer coding!
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Country:
United States of America
Type
of hero: Environmental, Cultural and Development Rights
Attributes:
Mathematical Genius, Computer whiz
Biography:
Grace Hopper was born in New York. As a child, she was attracted to gadgets. One of her favourite tasks was taking apart alarm clocks. (We are unsure if she ever put them back together though.)
She attended Vassar College then Yale University, where she received her PhD in Mathematics. This was a rare achievement at that time for both men and women. In 1943, she joined the United States Naval Reserve to assist her country in its wartime challenges.
During this time, she was assigned the task of developing programmes for the first automatically sequenced digital computer (an item she called a calculator)
One of her significant achievements during this time was in developing new languages for the computer that were easer to understand and she was one of the pioneers in the use of COBOL.
Possibly her greatest achievement was the invention of the idea of a computer compiler in 1952. This enabled automatic programming of computer language so programmers could reuse code that had already been tested. Until this time, when new software was written, repetitive code needed to be developed. This could often lead to errors. The new system made writing code easier and reduced the numbers of errors.
While she retired from the Naval Reserves in 1966, she was called back to active duty one year later. The navy wanted her to oversee a program in their computing department.
She was known as a person of vision. While she was surrounded by people who would oppose change by saying “but that’s how we have always done it”, she would forge on, realising that especially in computing, where things were developing all the time, this was not the best approach. In order to show others that different things were possible, she kept a clock that ran counter clockwise in her office.
Upon her retirement from the Navy in 1986 with the rank of Rear Admiral, she immediately became a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, and remained there several years, working well into her eighties. She died in her sleep in Arlington, Virginia on January 1, 1992.
Citations
& References:
Links:
http://www.greatwomen.org/hopper.htm
http://www.wic.org/bio/ghopper.htm
http://www.cs.yale.edu/~tap/Files/hopper-wit.html
http://www.cs.yale.edu/~tap/Files/hopper-story.html
http://www.cciw.com/content/grace_hopper.html
http://www.hopper.navy.mil/Admiral_Hopper.htm
http://www.sdsc.edu/Hopper/Hopper97/hopper_links.html
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