Today marks the 107th birthday of Grace Hopper the computer scientist credited as the person responsible for the development of the first ever programming language COBOL. In homage to this anniversary, todays Google Doodle has paid tribute to her memory.
Hopper was very much a pioneer in the computing field, being one of the first programmers to work on the Havard Mark 1 computer as well as developing COBOL. She is also credited with the turn of phrase “debugging” when referring to resolving computing problems.
She was a Vassar graduate with a degree in Maths and Physics, graduating from Yale with a Masters degree. During World War 2 she served in the Navy and worked at Havard with Howard Aiken on the Mark 1 Computer.
In 1959, a two-day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) brought together computer experts from industry and government. Hopper served as the technical consultant to the committee, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language).
Grace Hopper died in 1992, following a life full of awards and recognition, including the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center named its flagship system “Hopper” in 2009.
So with respect to an IT legend:
000010 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000020 PROGRAM-ID. HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-PROG.
000030 AUTHOR. BACKUP TECHNOLOGY.
000040 *The standard Hello world program
000050
000060 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000070
000080 DATA DIVISION.
000090 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
000100 01 TEXT-OUT PIC X(12) VALUE ‘Happy Birthday Grace!’.
000110
000120 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000130 MAIN-PARAGRAPH.
000140 DISPLAY TEXT-OUT
000150 STOP RUN.
