Saturday, October 1, 2016

"Amazing Grace" -- Grace Hopper, THE Queen of Code


I really enjoyed this short documentary film on "Amazing Grace" at mental_floss by Chris Huggins.

As the site states:

"Grace Hopper was a computing pioneer. She coined the term "computer bug" after finding a moth stuck inside Harvard's Mark II computer in 1947 (which in turn led to the term "debug," meaning solving problems in computer code). She did the foundational work that led to the COBOL programming language, used in mission-critical computing systems for decades (including today). She worked in World War II using very early computers to help end the war. When she retired from the U.S. Navy at age 79, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the service. Hopper is a hero of computing, and a brilliant role model, but not many people even know her story.
In this short documentary from FiveThirtyEight (yes, the political stats people), we learn about Grace Hopper from several biographers, archival photographs, and footage of her speaking in her later years. If you've never heard of Grace Hopper, or you're even vaguely interested in the history of computing or women in computing, this is a must-watch:"