Born in 1906, computer scientist Grace Hopper invented the first compiler for computer programming language & was among the first programmers of the Harvard Mk1 computer.
@Sheril@objectinspace
Image description: Grace Hopper is standing in a room full of really big computers, they are as big as her and look like cupboards. One can see 4.5 of them, there are likely more. In her right hand she is holding a book or paper that says "COBOL", the right arm is hanging down. Her left hand is on one of the computers, she is looking to it. There are tapes in the computers, one can see the tapes behind glass. The photo is black and white. She is wearing a dress.
She received the Montreal Data Processing Management Assoc'n 1st/inaugural "Man of the Year" award in late 1960s or early 1970s. I heard her describe how the 1st computers she and colleagues worked on was programmed with plug board wiring, with which I am familiar from later equipment. Cable wiring can be messy on these very large boards and would short but for the insulation (organic then), which insects (roaches?) apparently might eat. These were "bugs": "debugging" was a real thing
@Sheril@YusufToropov I was fortunate enough to hear her speak at my tiny liberal arts alma mater. She was brilliant, yet her explanations were easily understood. A true pioneer.
It's probable that she didn't invent the term bug as we know it today, rather popularised it's use. There is good evidence that the term bug predated modern computers as we know them and was used in the engineering community for a problem.
Ada Lovelace probably identified the first software bug though she didn't call it that...
Irrespective, plenty of who said what and when, both women were major contributors to computing and are often overlooked.
“If you ask me what accomplishment I’m most proud of, the answer would be all the young people I’ve trained over the years; that’s more important than writing the first compiler.”
@Sheril COBOL never gets enough love for how good it was for certain applications. Some of Canada’s biggest banking systems were coded in COBOL for decades and were ridiculously reliable at a time when computer software was known for how often it crashed and how hard it could sometimes be to debug.
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