Hopper Grace Murray

Grace Murray Hopper  (died on January 1, 1992) — one of pioneers of programming, the mathematician. Rear admiral of the VTR of the USA. By right it is considered "the grandmother of COBOL" and it is awarded numerous awards for the invaluable contribution made in development of this programming language. Was born on December 9, 1906 in New York. Parents, the father  also mother  — Mary Campbell Horne Murray is Walter Fletcher Murray.

Biography

Grace Hopper early learned to read and in the childhood detected talent for mathematical sciences and passion to the equipment. Upon termination of private school for girls it entered Vassar-college (Vassar College)  — the America's first college where women could expect full education. In four years, in  1928, Grace Murray received degree of the bachelor of mathematics and physics and entered Yale University from which she graduated in  1930, having already degree of the master of mathematics. Then Grace married Vincent Foster Hopper, the teacher of the English literature of the New York business school. And already in the 1934th Grace Hopper became the woman first in the history who defended at Yale University the doctoral dissertation on philosophy in mathematics. In  1940, after the divorce, thirty-four-year-old Grace unexpectedly for all decided to enlist. In the 1943rd, having overpersuaded the army management, Grace Hopper was called on the fleet and received a position of the third computer programmer of Mark I in Bureau of artillery computing projects at Harvard University. Without having worked over ballistic calculations and years, Grace made discovery: routine transactions in calculations can be issued as the subprogramme. It in  1944 created the first-ever subprogramme for a computer calculating sin(x). In  1951 Grace Hopper developed the first compiler which during broadcasting made subroutining, memory allocation of the computer, conversion of pseudo-codes to machine instructions.

In  1954 when Grace already directed a development team, the whole system (under name AT-3) which included this programming language and the compiler was born. For creation of a modern language of programming Grace Hopper selected about 30 English words defining possible transactions over data: (put) add, (to compare) compare, (to send) transfer. Their uniqueness was a condition of selection of words: each of commands contains a unique combination from the first and third letters therefore the compiler at machine code generation could just throw out all other letters. In  1959 as the consultant Grace Hopper got to work on new, more perfect and hardware-independent COBOL language (Common Business Oriented Language) which is still used in finance applications. Estimating its contribution to this project, colleagues nicknamed Grace "Kobol's grandmother". To all other Grace Hopper detected first-ever "bug" (software failure) and became the author of the term debugging. And there was it in  1951 when in the Mark II computer the moth inexplicably flew and closed contacts of one of the relay there. Later Grace told: "When to us the officer came to learn, than we are engaged, we answered that we clear the computer of insects (debugging)". Since then the term debugging (debugging) became current all programmers of the world, and the term "bug" began to mean fault of any sort. The moth taken from the computer carefully pasted in the system magazine in the report on the first case of "debugging".

Hopper's merits before mankind were so obvious that soon the come round military administration approved the order about "assignment to the captain of the third rank Grace Hopper of the next rank of the captain of the second rank". There was 1973, Grace was far for sixty and she did not think of military career any more. However the generals liked to change shoulder straps on a single-breasted coat of "the eternal pensioner" before that else in ten years she served to the commodore (the captain of the first rank), and by seventy nine years became the rear admiral. The president Ronald Reagan personally reaped her wrinkled pad. And still, at eighty-year age, it was finally dismissed. At the ceremony devoted to this event the heroic admiral Lehman, clinging the medal "For Excellent Service" on the colleague's breast, tragically said "Grace where I still will find the person of your caliber?!" But, having retired, Mrs. Hopper did not calm down. She became the Chief consultant in Digital Equipment corporation and in this role continued to travel about on the world with popular lectures and scientific reports up to the last days. On one of the evil caricatures published in the New Yorker magazine, the old woman Grace refused to pass in paradise gate until the apostle Pyotr does not get own personal computer. In the 91st the next president of the States, George Bush, handed it the National medal for development of technologies (something like our Lenin/Stalin award). It was buried at the Arlington cemetery, with all military honors, right after the New Year's festivals of 1992. And in the spring of the 1996th on raid there was a rocket USS Hopper frigate (DUG 70) sparkling steel.

Source

OSP.RU: The first lady of programming