Talk:Grace Hopper

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[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

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Egern (talk • contribs) 19:31, 29 November 2001

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

I once heard her speak, and she was quite clear that the term "bug" was already in use in other electrical fields for 'an unexplained connection problem', and that they had been informally using it on the Mark II. That was why finding an actual bug causing their 'computer bug' was so ironic.

She was also quite careful not to claim that she had personally found the bug; it was found by others, she just pasted it into the logbook and wrote the famous comment. (A mistake in this article I've corrected.)

She seems to have been very careful about always being accurate -- not surprising, considering her experience in computer programming. T-bonham 22:42, 23 July 2007 (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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zephyr1986 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 8 August 2005

[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)
Around 1971-1972, then Commander Hopper gave a talk at Virginia Tech, in the Squires Auditorium. We all coveted a little time on the two IBM-370-155 mainframes over in Burrus Hall, and owning our own computers was a total fantasy. She passed out a bunch of "nanoseconds" (short lengths of comm wire one nanosecond in wavelength) and then told us that to clock at a nanosecond, the radius of a computer could not be larger than that. You could not move data between register and memory at a high clock rate if the distance was too great. Thus, computers would have to be small in order to be fast. Then she said that small computers would be cheap. She predicted, quite correctly, that in a few years, computers costing under $5000 would be available, which we could have on our own desk, and use as we pleased. You could sense jaws dropping around the room! I was salivating, as she predicted how this would fundamentally change the way computers were used. I don't think any science fiction authors understood this for, what, a decade? The lady got it! And I was quite struck by her poise and confidence. I had no doubt that she knew what she said was hard fact. And here I sit, typing this on a computer with a 1/3 nanosecond effective clock speed, purchased for around $1000! Tomligon (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2008 (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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennette (talk • contribs) 15:23, 8 April 2006

I heard her speak on two different occasions and both times she credited her "moth" experience as the beginning of the phrase "computer bug". J Baughman

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)
Time doesn't seem to be all that reliable a source either. The story there gives a date of August, 1945 for this event; it's known to have happened on September 9th, 1947 (the actual log page even has the date on the top of the page), and in 1945 Hopper was still in the military. Also Time says it was the Mark I machine, it was the Mark II (the log page refers to components of the Mark II machine). T-bonham 22:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if I can find it, but I am fairly certain that a notebook page with the moth taped on appeared on the cover of a science publication, possibly Science News, a decade or two ago. That suggest to me that the original record, probably including the original "bug", does still exist. This would be the ultimate citation, if it can be located. Tomligon (talk) 16:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
It's currently on display at the Smithsonian (reference #4 in the article) ... let's give it a rest! —72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) 17:19, 19 January 2008 (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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Espertus (talk • contribs) 01:29, 18 January 2007
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)

[edit] Personal life

There's not much here on her personal life. Married? Kids? Lived at? Does anyone have any of that info? peterl 09:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That's in the article. Married in 1930, divorced 1945, no kids. But it's really not of much importance, either in her life or here. This is an encyclopedia, not a gossip magazine. T-bonham (talk) 05:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anecdote - quotes

Is it possible to add this additional quote attributed to Grace Hopper?

"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for."

Source: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,21983270-5012506,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by PassingInTheNight (talk • contribs) 00:27, 6 August 2007

I've replaced the very recent (and somewhat indirect) source for this attribution with a journal citation from 1984. (I've also added the source to the quote on Wikiquote.) Thanks for the motivation to track this one down! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that her famous quote that says 'better to ask forgiveness' should be completed with/corrected to: "If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission." I can't find a good reference but do see this more refined version all over the web. (vanFelius). —Preceding unsigned comment added by VanFelius (talk • contribs) 12:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Original Navy Service

The section 'cobol' states that she 'later returned to the navy', but makes no mention of when she was first in the navy. Is there a story about that? If the info box is to be believed, she joined the navy in 1943 - why? It may have been during WW2, but I'm not aware that women were drafted into the services. (When I say 'why?' I don't been 'why would anyone be so daft?', I simply ask if there was a particular reason, like to work directly for the navy doing scientific research which couldn't be done as a civilian.)

The box seems to suggest that she was only out of the navy for 2 years between 1943 and 1986, how then, could she have worked as an employee for a bazillion different tech companies at the same time? Or was she a member of the naval reserve for the entire duration except for a few short periods of time? It seems disingenuous not to make the distinction, even if people in both are equally patriotic for being there.

Am I missing something? Gurkha (talk) 00:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)