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Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (on Ada Lovelace Day)

Gary from http://GarySaid.com/ — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:00:17 +0000

Admiral Grace hopper lived from December 9, 1907 to January 1, 1992 and had a lot more to do with computing than most names you know today.

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for. ”

She graduated from Vassar in Mathematics and Physics and got her Ph.D. from Yale in the same subjects. She to a leave of absence from Vasser, where she was an Associate Professor of Mathematics, and joined the Navy Reserve. I’ve got a few quotes of hers in this post. She’s also attributed to phrase “bugs” in the computer (or maybe “debugging”), but I’ve heard so many stories about that I’m not so sure but here’s a photo with notes.

She served on the Mark I computer programming staff at Harvard.

In 1949 she was a senior mathematician on the team developing the UNIVAC I.

In the early 1950s she worked on the A-0 programming language compiler. This is the first computer compiler!

A lot of her compiler work is said to be the basis of the COBOL computer language.

In the 1970s she pioneered the implementation of standards for computer languages (like COBOL and FORTRAN).

“It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

She was on 60 minutes in 1982, here’s part 1 and part 2, she’s pretty funny.

Here’s a video of her on Letterman (Oct. 2, 1986). She holds her own pretty good and explains how fast light and electricity can travel. It’s some of the same jokes from the 60 Minutes interview, but dumbed down for Dave.

Here’s the original YouTube link.

In 1971 ACM created the Grace Murray Hopper Award which is awarded to the outstanding young (35 or younger) computer professional of the year, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical or service contribution. Be sure to click the link, you’ll see some familiar names (Wozniak, Joy, Kurzweil, and more).

“The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.”

Additional info on Admiral Hopper: There is a conference named in her honor Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. She’s received 47 honorary degrees. When she retired she was the oldest active person in the military! She was in the Navy for 43 years; from 1943-1966, 1967-1971, and 1972-1986. The Navy’s USS Hopper, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is named after her.

Why am I talking about her today? Because I signed a pledge that said “I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same“. I’m one of those 1,000 people, actually when last I looked it’s up to 1,610 people (I think I was number 844 to sign up).

Info on the post taken from here, her WIkipedia entry and some other info I’ve posted before.

Later: I see Brenda Wallace, Kathleen Weaver, Miguel Esquirol RÃos, cr0n.net, Joanna Bryson, Carolyn and Andy Roberts chose the same topic as I did.

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A laptop at home is safe, but that’s not what laptops are built for…

Gary from http://GarySaid.com/ — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 03:24:54 +0000

I swear every week I get a few more dents in this thing. It’s work’s and even if I went through one of these things a year they’d get their money’s worth from all the little things I get done a home and weekends ’cause I take it everywhere.

I just went to change the battery and found another dent which made it hard to get the battery out. I de-dented it but it’s just one more thing. FYI it’s a 12 inch Apple Powerbook G4. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything but a faster smaller one. You can keep that 17 inch one, it’s too much to lug around. I do miss the plastic case of my old iBook, this does feel like it’s going to slip out of my hands (no that’s not the cause of any of the dents). Most of them just show up, kinda like that odd bruise on your shin/elbow/etc. that you don’t know how it got there. I just want this one to last at least until the 1.5 GHz ones come out…

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” That’s the original quote, but can you tell me who it’s from from?

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper . Crazy, geeky, cool Navy Admiral. Passed away in 92. She’s got lots of quotes I find attributed to her, but I never knew they were all hers…

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Tags and Categories: Admiral Hopper, Apple, computers, Grace Hopper, quotes

Grace Hopper

Gary from http://GarySaid.com/ — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 22:05:57 +0000

Quote of the Day (from my today info on the lower right of my page).

A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.

Grace Murray Hopper

I never knew she said that. She’s this wonderfully crazy Admiral in the Navy, had a lot to do with computing. She passed away in 1992 and I know I saw her on Letterman a time or two. She was great with analogies (which I love) when talking about technology. I remember seeing her on some show talking about the speed of computers and explaining it quite well with spaghetti and pepper.

The other thing that she’s attributed with (which I’m more certain she actually said) is:

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

She’s got her own entry in TV Tomb and I think there is a big computing conference with her name in the title.

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Tags and Categories: Computer, computers, Grace Hopper, people, quotes, Spaghetti, technology