Shes also famous for introducing the idea of debugging software because of a moth that landed on an early computer and stopped the machine. Grace hopper, american mathematician and rear admiral in the u. This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about grace murray hopper across 24 indepth pages. These are readytouse grace murray hopper worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about grace hopper december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 who is a legendary american computer. While grace hopper had many accomplishments and skills as a. Grace murray hopper december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 is a legendary american computer scientist, a us navy rear admiral, professor of mathematics, and computer programming inventor see the fact file below for more information on the grace murray hopper or alternatively, you can download our 24page grace murray hopper worksheet pack to utilise within the. During her time in the navy, hopper was one of the first people to program the enormous ibmbuilt calculator called the harvard mark i and its. Hopper considered her greatest accomplishment to be all the young people she trained. Software bug compatible timesharing system debugger breakpoint grace hopper assembly language incircuit emulation programmer programming language tracing software crash computing core dump delta debugging software jtag basic printf format string troubleshooting computer program system interactivity control flow unit. She popularized the idea of machineindependent programming languages, which led to the development of. She was promoted to commodore in 1983, a title that was later renamed to rear admiral, lower half, and finally retired for the last time in 1986 at the age of 80. As a child, she took apart seven alarm clocks before her mother realized her daughter would not stop until she figured out how they worked.
Grace brewster murray hopper was a computer pioneer and naval officer. Make sure to subscribe if you want to see more videos about women in stem. Although there is debate about whether hopper coined the term, she certainly helped popularize the term during her career. Grace hopper gave us the term debugging in more ways than.
From a young age, she had an analytical mind and was known to take apart and reconstruct the clocks in her home. One of the first programmers of the mark i, developer of. Grace murray hopper december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 was an american computer scientist and united states navy rear admiral. Navy rear admiral grace hopper, coined the terms bug and debug after an incident involving harvard universitys mark ii calculator. Whilst was working on a mark ii computer at harvard university, her associates found that a moth has lodged itself in a relay and had shortcircuited the system. It is produced by and presented in partnership with acm. The mark i was acting up and giving incorrect results. Admiral grace hopper s log book contains the original computer bug dr. Remote debugging is the process of debugging a program running on a system different from the debugger. One of the first female programmers, grace hopper also worked as a mathematician and had an unusual career for women in the 1900s. She conceptualized the idea of machineindependent programming languages, which led to the development. The most colorful programming pioneer was a gutsy and spirited, yet also charming and collegial, naval officer named grace hopper, who ended up working for harvards howard aiken, designer of the mark i computer, and then for presper eckert and john mauchly, creators of the generalpurpose electronic digital computer. In the beginning of computer era, debugging is something of a hitormiss procedure for a quite a few years. Grace hopper gave us the term debugging in more ways.
Debugging, in computer programming and engineering, is a multistep process that involves identifying a problem, isolating the source of the problem, and then either correcting the problem or determining a way to work around it. She carried a onefoot piece of wire with her to represent a nanosecond, based on. Grace hopper was the committees technical consultant. Us navy rear admiral grace hopper, who worked on this machine, was so. Compliers and the flowmatic greatly influenced the development of the computer language cobol. Jan 12, 2011 grace murray hopper is also a mother of cobol.
Thus, while a very compelling case can be made for hopper being at least in part responsive for the widespread adoption of the terms bug and debugging in the software industry through her work on the univac documentation, evidence exists to show that the terms were already associated with programming the harvard mark i prior to hoppers. Til that grace hopper is credited with popularizing the term debugging when she removed a moth from a computer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the harvard mark i computer, and she developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. Debugging is the process of finding and resolving defects or problems within a computer program that prevent correct operation of computer software or a system debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, unit testing, integration testing, log file analysis, monitoring at the application or system level, memory dumps, and profiling. At age seven, she disassembled all of the familys alarm clocks to see how they worked before reassembling them.
Many of her analogies and examples have become legendary. Debugging the gender gap 2015 origin of computer bug. It was 51 feet long, eight feet high, eight feet deep, she said. Leading thinkers such as alick glennie and grace hopper realize that they could extend the concept of the assembler even further. Debugging programming software and the ide bbc bitesize. Entering the world in 1906, grace hopper displayed a precious intelligence. A compiler was software that could translate a whole set of programmers instructions into binary language. She coined the phrase after finding a moth inside a computer. In 1952, she invented the first software compiler, the a0, which built machine code from mathematical.
Dec 06, 2016 mit lincoln laboratory proudly presents commodore grace hoppers landmark lecture on the future of computing. Debugging is the process of finding and resolving defects or problems within a computer. Admiral grace hoppers log book contains the original computer bug dr. Lieutenant grace hopper uses a new calculating machine invented by.
Indeed, in an interview grace hopper remarked that she was not coining the term. One of the first programmers of the harvard mark i computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. It was in use in other fields at the time, and appeared at least a year prior in the computer field. Grace murray hopper was a remarkable woman who grandly rose to the challenges of programming the first computers. The story of tech pioneer grace hopper and also how she coined the term computer bug. Built in partnership with the us department of defense, cobol alone has stood the test of time as the language that powers. The grace hopper program at fullstack academy is an immersive software engineering course for women where you only pay tuition once you secure a job. Grace hopper was a pioneering computer scientist and a rear admiral in the u. There simply were not enough programmers and time to do it all. In the year 2000 about 240 billion of the 300 billion lines of computer code ever written had been written in cobol. Grace hopper was an inspiration to women everywhere, for she persevered and succeeded in a field in which few women had dared to enter at the time. The word went out that they had debugged the machine and the term debugging a computer program was born. Mit lincoln laboratory proudly presents commodore grace hoppers landmark lecture on the future of computing. Whether grace hopper really was the first to coin the term bug is an open question but her version of the story is at least fun.
Celebrating admiral grace hopper s 107 birthday a dmiral grace murray hopper 19061992 is a pioneer in the field of computer science. This lead to the idea of debugging a computer, which is still a widelyused term in the computer development industry. Admiral grace hoppers log book contains the original. Thus, while a very compelling case can be made for hopper being at least in part responsive for the widespread adoption of the terms bug and debugging in the software industry through her work on the univac documentation, evidence exists to show that the terms were already associated with programming the harvard mark i prior to hopper s. An internal examination located the faulty relay and there jammed between the contacts was a moth beaten to death by the rapid opening and closing of the relay. My multidisciplinary background software testing, opensource development, product, women in. Biography rear admiral grace murray hopper december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 was an american computer scientist and united states naval officer. Thankfully, we do not have to program computers in zeroes and ones. The field of computer science owes a great debt to the one of the navys most fascinating and visionary individuals.
Computer programmer grace hopper helped develop a compiler that was a precursor to the widely used cobol language and became a rear admiral in the u. She attended vassar college, where she graduated with a degree in mathematics and physics in 1928. Another hopper invention was the flowmatic program. She was known as amazing grace for her many accomplishments. Grace hopper shattered stereotypes for women in the navy. Dec 09, 20 grace hopper gave us cobol, debugging and inspiration. Grace hopper gave us cobol, debugging and inspiration. Mar 21, 2018 grace hopper was born grace brewster murray in new york city in 1906. With tracy chou, evelyn cordner, danielle feinberg, grace hopper.
A woman with many firsts, it would be incomplete to go through womens history month without honouring her memory. She was a social scientist, marketing whiz, and nothing less than a visionary. Learn about grace hopper and her role in computer history what is a compiler, the story of the first bug. Kevin dankwardt observing a rare find tim barrios, damon beyer, kevin dankwardt, and i were computer science majors at the university of lousiana at lafayette from 1977 to 1981. Cobol, based on flowmatic and ibms comtran language, became the dominant computer language for business in the 20th century. It does appear that the term debugging came into use around hoppers time period, but i havent seen any evidence firmly tying it to this particular moth. Grace tried to retire twice, in 1966 and 1971, but both times she was recalled to active duty indefinitely. From 1951 to 1952, hopper invented the a0 system, the first ever compiler developed for an electronic computer. Grace hopper, the inventor of computer software women 2. Several uses of the term bug to indicate defects in computers and software.
Hopper developed a computer program called a compile. Its an oftrepeated tale that the grand dame of military computing, computer scientist and u. Grace hopper facts, bio, family, life, info sticky facts. Hopper teased that they had to debug the machine, then pasted the hapless moth into a notebook which is now in the smithsonian museum. Hopper continued to work with mark ii and univac i. Her parents encouraged her curiosity, and in time she attended yale university where she earned her ph. Did grace hopper really invent the term bug to describe software errors. The final step of debugging is to test the correction or workaround and make sure it works. The terms bug and debugging are popularly attributed to admiral grace hopper in the 1940s. Admiral grace hopper, pioneering computer programmer. Help students learn about grace hopper and why this week is cs edweek. Hopper 19061992 is known for finding the first computer bug, inventing. Grace hopper is known worldwide for her work with the first largescale digital computer, the mark i. However, there is another hardtomiss connection between grace hopper and the first generation of software debugging.
Til that grace hopper is credited with popularizing the. Grace hopper added the caption first actual case of bug being found, and thats the first time anyone used the word bug to describe a computer glitch. Grace brewster murray hopper nee murray december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 was an american computer scientist and united states navy rear admiral. In fact, hopper and her team coined the term debugging a computer because they had to pull a dead moth out of mark ii. Our cobol curriculum is based on award winning language design by rear admiral grace hopper. Today, ill be talking about the amazing grace murray hopper.
One of the first three modern programmers, hopper is best known for her trailblazing contributions to the development of computer languages. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the harvard mark i computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. Admiral hopper reported for active duty with the navy in july 1944. Sep 12, 2016 make sure to subscribe if you want to see more videos about women in stem. Grace hopper celebration is the worlds largest gathering of women technologists. Credit for the terms bug and debugging are widely attributed to admiral grace hopper in the mid1940s. During her lifetime as a leader in the field of software development concepts, she contributed to the transition from primitive programming techniques to the use of sophisticated compilers. And it had 72 words of storage and could perform three additions a second. On international womans day we remember grace hopper. Grace hopper was ordered to report to harvard university to work on the mark i, the behemoth digital computer that had been conceived by harvards howard aiken in 1937.
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