Grace Hopper – Creator of COBOL
Grace Hopper (1906 – 1992) was a Computer Scientist as well as a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy (She was multitalented!). She believed in machine-independent programming languages and so created the first compiler that converted English terms into machine code understood by computers.
That was not well received as Grace Hopper stated: “I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.” Nonetheless, this led to the creation of COBOL in 1959, an English-like programming language that is still used today.
Fun Fact: Grace Hopper was a sharp and opinionated speaker at various computer-related events in her later career, and was affectionately known as “Grandma COBOL”.
5 Women Programmers Who Changed The World!
Did you know that the First Computer Programmer was a Woman?
Well, you probably don’t (I didn’t either!). So let me enlighten you today! Ada Lovelace was a mathematician in Victorian Times (Yes that long ago!) and she is credited as being the First Computer Programmer Ever. In her own words:
That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.
And this is true for the many women that have contributed to the rich history of Computer Programming and are yet forgotten by the modern world. So this article attempts to introduce some of these amazing women that made significant contributions to Computer Programming and in the process helped change the world!