Mother of all compilers

 Grace Murray Hopper was an exceptional woman that settle the basis for modern computing, and that not many people know the name or the story, which is kinda sad.


Personally I had heard the name before but I always forget and I shouldn’t. Specially since she is the one that contributed the most to the language Cobol. While that language isn’t used as much as it was in the old days. It is one of the most influential programming languages of the modern era. 


I now will remember her because of the famous story of the bug in the Mark I, which apparently she was also one of the leading officers of the entire project. Which is also by no means a small feat.


I personally find surprising that in the video “The Queen of Code” of Vimeo, it is mentioned that she also helped with the math involved in the creation of the detonation mechanism of the nuclear bomb dropped on Japan during the second world war. 


While surprising I really don’t find it weird due to the need during those times of computational power, specially for the war. 


But I really find astonishing all of the field of work that this woman has had influence on.

She also was responsible for the idea behind a compiler. In the same video they explain that when computers started selling as a personal object, there was the need for a way of code to run in every system independently of the producer of the device. Kinda of the same reason that when the internet was created everyone agreed on a protocol for communication. That now that I think about it, it is most likely that those people got the inspiration from the compiler paradigm, that this woman influenced. It is most likely one of the brightest woman of all time.


Ref. "Queen of Code" - https://vimeo.com/118556349 

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