Certified badass here: Grace Hopper was one of the

Certified badass here: Grace Hopper was one of the first computer programmers, writing some of the earliest programs and computer languages in the 1940s. Her nickname was Grandma COBOL. She joined the Navy during WWII and retired as a rear admiral. (Picture taken in 1984)

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11 thoughts on “Certified badass here: Grace Hopper was one of the”

  1. This is the look of a woman that says, “Junior, I didn’t back down from Bull Halsey, and I won’t back down from you.”

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  2. > computer languages in the 1940s

    Not to deflect from what she accomplished, which is outstanding, but Programming languages are built upon assembly, which builds upon machine code. There were no top-level languages such as Cobol until the 1950s. In the 1940s, “programming” was setting registers or hand tuning assembly language on said computers until higher level languages came about.

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  3. We had a class room named after her at university, and many other rooms named from other computer pioneers, like the Sherry Turkle Lounge, and a toilet named Bill Gates.

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  4. I’m proud to own a Grace Hopper nanosecond (a ~ 12″ piece of wire) received from then Captain Hopper when she visited our College computer science department c. 1976. That was the punch card and mainframe era. She made predictions:

    1. Computers of the future would be very small

    2. They would run very hot and cooling would be vital

    3. They would have many many small leads on them.

    This was her “smoking hairy golf ball” forecast for 2000’s era CPUs, which was absolutely accurate.

    In 1976, she was already the oldest active duty navy officer. I don’t know if she originated the phrase, but she said “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”

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  5. She was a proper programmer. She helped the Navy count beans. I don’t understand how this makes her a Rear Admiral.

    Explain to me what I am missing.

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