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Grace
Hopper (1906-1992) was one of the first programmers to transform large
digital computers from oversized calculators into relatively
intelligent machines capable of understanding "human" instructions.
Hopper invented the first computer "compiler" in 1952. A compiler is
software that makes other computer software called programming
languages easier to write. Computer programmers had been required to
write programming instructions in binary code, a series of 0's and 1's.
Grace Hopper's compiler allowed programmers to use more human sounding
language commands to replace repetitive commands.
Grace
Hopper also developed a common language with which computers
could communicate called Common Business-Oriented Language or COBOL,
now the most widely used computer business language in the world. COBOL
enabled firms large and small to compile computerized payroll, billing,
and other records.
Invention
Economic Impact:
Gartner
Group in 1999 reported that over 50% of all new
mission-critical applications were still being done in COBOL and their
recent estimates indicate that through 2004-2005 15% of all new
applications (5 billion lines) will be developed in COBOL, while 80% of
all deployed applications will include extensions to existing legacy
(usually COBOL) programs. Gartner estimates for 2002 were that there
are about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about
about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. In
terms of dollars, (GNP) simply multiply an average salary of $40,000
per year times 2 million = $80,000,000,000.00.
Young
Grace's diligence and hard work paid off when in 1928 at the age
of 22 she was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College. She then
attended Yale University, where she received an MA degree in
Mathematics and Physics in 1930 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1934.
Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931 where her first
year's salary was $800. She stayed there until she joined the United
States Naval Reserve in December 1943.
Upon
graduation, she was commissioned a LTJG and ordered to the Bureau of
Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University. There she became
the first programmer on the Navy's Mark I computer, the mechanical
miracle of its day. Hopper's love of gadgets caused her to immediately
fall for the biggest gadget she'd ever seen, the fifty-one foot long, 8
foot high, 8 foot wide, glass-encased mound of bulky relays, switches
and vacuum tubes called the Mark I. This miracle of modern science
could store 72 words and perform three additions every second.
In 1946, Grace Murray Hopper was released
from active duty and joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation
Laboratory where her work continued on the Mark II and Mark III
computers for the Navy. In 1949 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer
Corporation in Philadelphia, (later called Sperry Rand), where she
co-designed
the first commercial large-scale electronic computer called the UNIVAC.
Visit Grace Murray Hopper.org
Grace Hopper.Org.
LINKS:
-
Wikipedia
- Yale
University
- MIT
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