
Captain Grace M. Hopper: The Mother of COBOL (1981) - bryanrasmussen
https://books.google.nl/books?id=JT0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-PA33&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
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GnarfGnarf
It's hard to appreciate today what powerful magic FORTRAN and COBOL were in
the 60's and 70's. To learn COBOL was entering a world where you were in
control, where you could cast spells that really worked, and get paid for it.

It's like humour: Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Lewis & Martin never made
me laugh, but I have no doubt they were fresh, innovative and irresistible in
their day.

When I saw my first computer graphics animation in 1966, a crude wireframe of
an aircraft, my mind was blown. I was feverish with excitement. It's a shame
we can never recapture that zeitgeist.

~~~
tasty_freeze
I felt the same way when I first played pong on a TV set in 1972 or 1973. It
was shocking that it was interactive and I wasn't just a passive receiver.

I'm not a gamer but understand the technology well. It is funny I can look at
these technically amazing FPS games and yawn, but pong was riveting just
because of the context of the times.

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Mountain_Skies
She appeared on Late Night with David Letterman shortly after her retirement.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N_ywhx6_K0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N_ywhx6_K0)
(interview start at 0:30)

~~~
ubermonkey
Oh, wow, guys, absolutely watch this. She was so great.

Hopper's is the only grave I have ever visited at Arlington.

As they said of Wren,

LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE

~~~
yarrel
That's a tempting (secular) pilgrimage!

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jfoutz
Captain at the time. I believe Commodore was the title at retirement, which
would now be called Rear Admiral.

I realize this is fussy. It's fair to say Captain in an old, old article. I
think the site requires no editorialization of headlines.

But much like the title President, is retained for life. I've got no problems
referring to Admiral Hopper. I was very small when she passed, so all of my
information is second hand at best. By all accounts she was an unstoppable
force of nature. Purely out of respect for her drive and ability, the title
really should be Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper: The Mother of COBOL.

The nanosecond wire alone should be a compelling argument. Truly a hacker.

(also, the whole magazine is a strange window into the past. the cartoon on
the page above is hilarious. providing a reading time for a resume is
unthinkable today)

~~~
2mol
Commodore still exists. Rear Admiral is one rank below, and that's indeed what
Grace Hopper was.

~~~
jki275
Commodore is (now) a title, not a rank. It was not always that way.

Commodore can refer to a Rear Admiral (Lower Half), which was Grace Hopper's
rank (IIRC it was awarded long after her retirement). Commodore can also refer
to a group commander -- for instance our Destroyer Squadrons are commanded by
a Commodore, who is an O-6. Same with Naval Special Warfare Groups.

Commodore as a title and a rank has a long and storied history all the way
back to the days of sail in the British Navy.

~~~
bradknowles
She kept getting called back to active duty, but to do that they had to
promote her, otherwise she would have exceeded the time-in-grade requirements.

My one big regret in coming to work for what was then the Defense
Communications Agency in September of 1989 was that I had missed meeting her
wandering the halls of the basement of the Pentagon by just a few months. But
I did work with some people who had known her personally.

I really wish I could have met her in person.

~~~
jki275
I wish I could have as well. Unfortunately she died a couple of years before I
joined the Navy. My rate (DS) was heavily influenced by the things she did.

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ai_ja_nai
COBOL. Tsk. Grace Hopper invented the first compiler for the language A-0 in
1952.

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acqq
Captain Grace M. Hopper: the Mother of COBOL

By Vicki Porter Adams

When Captain Grace M. Hopper put her pack of Lucky Strikes (they still make
them) on the table as she prepared for an interview, the assembled journalists
felt that this would be a different type of question-and-answer session. It
was.

Captain Hopper, 74, inventor, mathematician, teacher and computer expert, is
on active duty with the United States Navy. She is called "The Mother of
COBOL."

After talking to Hopper, you understand why she contributed so much to the
computer industry. She is never satisfied with the way things are; she is
eternally curious — an American pioneer.

In 1943, armed with a PhD from Yale, teaching experience and work at the
Applied Physics Lab at Harvard, she joined the Navy. She was appointed to the
pilot group assigned to analyze the Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Calculator (ENIAC), the machine that was modified to become the first North
American Air Defense computer.

\- "" "By not adopting—or following—standards, the Federal government spends
$450 million a year converting computer programs."

Hopper was then assigned to work on the Univac Mark I, to help "tame the
monster" as she puts it. Recognizing that progress was slow because operating
instructions had to be repeated for each run, Hopper used her abundant common
sense to devise a solution to the problem. She prestored the steps most prone
to human error in the computer. This was the birth of compilers.

Hopper, after working with computers for 40 years, thinks, "The computer
industry today is about where the Model-T was when it was developed. When I
was a child, Henry Ford came along and invented a car everyone could have—as
long as they wanted it black. That's where we are today. The very beginning of
mass use of the computer. We haven't even begun to exploit its potential."

Captain Hopper is one of the first members of the U.S. data-processing
community to recognize the value of using computers in the areas of predicting
weather patterns, managing energy resources, increasing agricultural output
and generally contributing solutions to the many long-range problems Americans
must solve.

Largest Industry

"Computers will be, if they aren't already, the largest industry in the
country," declares Captain Hopper. The data-processing industry will replace
automobiles and construction as the mainstay of the American economy."

\- "" "The computer industry today is about where the Model-T was when it was
developed."

When asked how expanding Japanese semiconductor production and Japanese
activities in programming may affect American industry, she replied, "The
American people have imagination and creativity. Nobody else possesses these
traits as we do. I think it has something to do with the fact that we all came
here from somewhere else. Many of our families were down and out. The American
people have always had to think a little harder and do a little better to
prove themselves. That's why we don't really have to worry about anyone else.
Whatever we want to do, we can do.

"But let's not mismanage it," she continued. "Right now we're in the business
of collecting information. No one has really analyzed the total flow of
information. What is most important? Is it Joe's two hours of overtime, or is
it a nuclear power plant that might blow up if we don't change a valve
setting? We have not correctly addressed that.

"We haven't researched the value of information or the cost of incorrect
information—or even which information gets priority. It is my experience that
the senior squeaking wheel gets the top priority."

She offered an anecdote about the origin of the term "debug." "In 1945, while
working in a World War I vintage non-air-conditioned building on a hot, humid
summer day, the computer stopped. We searched for the problem and found a
failing relay—one of the big signal relays. Inside, we found a moth that had
been beaten to death. We pulled it out with tweezers and taped it to the log
book. From then on, when the officer came in to ask if we were accomplishing
anything, we told him we were 'debugging the computer."

Captain Hopper thinks standards have been neglected. "By not adopting — or
following — standards, the Federal government spends $450 million a year
converting computer programs. A real waste of money," she pointed out. "Of
course, data-processing people won't obey formulas or follow standards
anyway," she added.

Computer Future

Captain Hopper's strongest conviction about the future growth of the computer
industry is her faith in the curiosity and imagination of the young and their
acceptance of computers.

She admits that she may not consider age a factor in anything. When she was 40
and women were allowed to enlist in the regular Navy, they told her she was
"too old." She says, "When someone tells you you're too old at 40, you get
over the trauma. You never have to worry about age again." (Incidentally, the
Navy called her back after she retired from Univac when she was over 60.)

She contends, "Kids know what's happening. They're up on the technology. Lots
of bright youngsters aren't hampered by 'we've always done it this way; 'it
won't work' or 'I've never heard of it."

She thinks the media contribute to the fears of people outside the industry.
"What do we see in the newspapers?" she asks. "Computers will eliminate jobs.
Computers will take over the world.

"Computers can't take over," she asserts. "We can always pull the plug!"

Finally, addressing the matter of the shortage of programmers and other
computer people, Captain Hopper said, "Yes, there is a tremendous shortage,
particularly in the area of system design. The schools and colleges aren't
meeting the needs of the industry. The kids need hands-on time, and the
teachers have to know how to operate and efficiently use computers. Apple is
doing a good job of training teachers. Others must take up the effort "

Image: Grace M. Hopper: computer pioneer (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

October 5, 1981 - Infoworld, pg. 33

(OCR-ed for accessibility purposes)

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brian_herman__
I thought she was a Rear Admiral?

~~~
brian_herman__
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper)

