[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dave Horsfall]

(At the risk of being flamed because it's not strictly Unix...)

We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing 
Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She 
coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of relay 
contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer debugged" 
in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.  She was 
convinced that computers could be programmed in an English-like language 
and developed Flow-Matic, which in turn became, err, COBOL...  She was 
posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack 
Obama.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Larry McVoy]

On Sat, Dec 09, 2017 at 10:26:39AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> (At the risk of being flamed because it's not strictly Unix...)

It might not be Unix but seems appropriate to me, she was amazing.

> We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing
> Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She
> coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of relay
> contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer debugged" in
> the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.  She was
> convinced that computers could be programmed in an English-like language and
> developed Flow-Matic, which in turn became, err, COBOL...  She was
> posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack
> Obama.
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Mike Markowski]

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On 12/08/2017 06:26 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> (At the risk of being flamed because it's not strictly Unix...)
> 
> We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as 
> "Amazing Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the 
> Navy.  [...]

Coincidentally, I work in Hopper Hall, named after her, and complete 
with a nice bronze plaque with her likeness in the lobby.  There's a 
short blurb on her about 2/3 down the page at:

https://www.army.mil/article/66745/new_campus_built_on_tradition_of_excellence

Mike Markowski

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2017, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> (At the risk of being flamed because it's not strictly Unix...)

I tremble to think of the reception for Countess Augusta Ada King-Noel's 
birthday tomorrow; then again, it's also JFO's birthday!

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Jason Stevens]

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I always liked her quick talk on a nanosecond vs a microsecond
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8


I wonder what she’d think about a PDP-11 running in javascript...

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Dave Horsfall
Sent: Saturday, 9 December 2017 7:27 AM
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
Subject: [TUHS] Grace Hopper

(At the risk of being flamed because it's not strictly Unix...)

We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing 
Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She 
coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of relay 
contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer debugged" 
in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.  She was 
convinced that computers could be programmed in an English-like language 
and developed Flow-Matic, which in turn became, err, COBOL...  She was 
posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack 
Obama.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

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[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Paul Winalski]

I attended a lecture by Admiral Hopper ca. 1981 at DEC's software
engineering facility in Nashua NH.  She used the
micorsecond/nanosecond demonstration as part of a prediction of the
end of Moore's Law, and the eventual need for parallel processing to
make further gains in computing speed.  She drew another analogy:  in
the 19th century, if you wanted to haul a larger load, you didn't
breed bigger and bigger horses; you hitched up several horses as a
team.  She was quite the visionary.

She handed out nanoseconds as souvenirs after the talk.  I still treasure mine.

-Paul W.

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> On Dec 9, 2017, at 2:04 AM, Jason Stevens <jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
> 
> I always liked her quick talk on a nanosecond vs a microsecond

Her Letterman appearance is a classic :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vcErOPofQ

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[arnold]

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing 
> Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.

No argument there.

> She coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of
> relay contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer
> debugged" in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging#Origin_of_the_term which
indicates that "bug" and "debugging" had been around as technical
terms long before that incident.

Otherwise, yes, an amazing person.

Arnold

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2017, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

>> She coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of 
>> relay contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer 
>> debugged" in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.
>
> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging#Origin_of_the_term which 
> indicates that "bug" and "debugging" had been around as technical terms 
> long before that incident.

I need to investigate that further (I'd hate to spread misinformation, 
which is why I enjoy being corrected, esp. in public).

(Pause for a message from the sponsor)

Ah yes, the quote is "First actual case of bug being found" (and it was a 
Mk II, not a Mk I); thanks!

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] Origin of "bug" (was: Grace Hopper)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Sunday, 10 December 2017 at 10:17:54 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Dec 2017, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
>
>>> She coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of
>>> relay contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer
>>> debugged" in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.
>>
>> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging#Origin_of_the_term which
>> indicates that "bug" and "debugging" had been around as technical terms
>> long before that incident.
>
> I need to investigate that further (I'd hate to spread misinformation,
> which is why I enjoy being corrected, esp. in public).

I was going to pipe up here, but I wasn't sure if it would be
interesting.  The Oxford English Dictionary has a first reference to
in this sense in 1875:

   5. orig. U.S.

   a. A defect or fault in a machine (esp. an electrical or electronic
   one), or in a process, etc.


   1875 Operator 15 Aug. 5/1 The biggest ‘bug’ yet has been discovered
        in the U.S. Hotel Electric Annunciator.

   1889 Pall Mall Gaz. 11 Mar. 1/1 Mr. Edison, I was informed, had
   	been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his
   	phonograph—an expression for solving a difficulty, and
   	implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside
   	and is causing all the trouble.

Grace Hopper's bug doesn't get a mention.

Greg
--
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[TUHS] Origin of "bug" (was: Grace Hopper)

[Bakul Shah]

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May be it is derived from “bugbear”? As per Merriam-Webster:
1) an imaginary goblin or specter used to excite fear
2) a source of dread, a continuing source of irritation: a problem.
First known use 1552.

[TUHS] Origin of "bug" (was: Grace Hopper)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Saturday,  9 December 2017 at 16:30:57 -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
> May be it is derived from ???bugbear???? As per Merriam-Webster:
> 1) an imaginary goblin or specter used to excite fear
> 2) a source of dread, a continuing source of irritation: a problem.
> First known use 1552.

OED suggests that both our "bug" and "bugbear" are derived from "bug"
(An insect or other arthropod).  It agrees with the 1552 date:

1552 R. King Funerall Serm. sig. F.iiiiv Momishe mopers whiche can do
     none other thyng else, but mope vppon ther bookes, to make vs
     afraied of shadowes and buggeberes.

Greg
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Sent from my desktop computer.
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[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dave Horsfall]

We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing 
Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She 
coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of relay 
contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer debugged" 
in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.  She was 
convinced that computers could be programmed in an English-like language 
and developed Flow-Matic, which in turn became, err, COBOL...  She was 
posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack 
Obama.

-- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Grace Hopper

[ron minnich]

I got to meet her a couple times. I got a nanosecond from her twice
and lost both of them. One story she told was of navigating tokyo
using an international language ... Cobol.
On Sat, Dec 8, 2018 at 12:06 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing
> Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She
> coined the term "debugging" when she extracted a moth from a set of relay
> contacts from a computer (the Harvard Mk I) and wrote "computer debugged"
> in the log, taping the deceased Lepidoptera in there as well.  She was
> convinced that computers could be programmed in an English-like language
> and developed Flow-Matic, which in turn became, err, COBOL...  She was
> posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack
> Obama.
>
> -- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Grace Hopper

[arnold]

Hi Dave.

We went through this last year:

Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> We gained Rear Admiral Grace Hopper on this day in 1906; known as "Amazing 
> Grace", she was a remarkable woman, both in computers and the Navy.  She 
> coined the term "debugging"

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging#Origin_of_the_term:

	The terms "bug" and "debugging" are popularly attributed to
	Admiral Grace Hopper in the 1940s.[1] While she was working on a
	Mark II computer at Harvard University, her associates discovered
	a moth stuck in a relay and thereby impeding operation, whereupon
	she remarked that they were "debugging" the system. However,
	the term "bug", in the sense of "technical error", dates back
	at least to 1878 and Thomas Edison (see software bug for a
	full discussion). Similarly, the term "debugging" seems to have
	been used as a term in aeronautics before entering the world of
	computers. Indeed, in an interview Grace Hopper remarked that
	she was not coining the term[citation needed]. The moth fit
	the already existing terminology, so it was saved. A letter
	from J. Robert Oppenheimer (director of the WWII atomic bomb
	"Manhattan" project at Los Alamos, NM) used the term in a letter
	to Dr. Ernest Lawrence at UC Berkeley, dated October 27, 1944,[2]
	regarding the recruitment of additional technical staff.

Please update your notes ...

Thanks,

Arnold

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

For more on Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, by one who knew her well, see
Jean Sammet's remembrance:

	Farewell to Grace Hopper: end of an era!
	https://doi.org/10.1145/129852.214846

A Ph.D. thesis about her:

	The Contributions of Grace Murray Hopper to Computer Science and Computer Education
	https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278692/m2/1/high_res_d/1002721264-mitchell.pdf

Books:

	Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea
	1-59114-978-9

	Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age 
	ISBN 0-262-51726-4

	Grace Hopper: Computer Whiz
	ISBN 0-7660-2273-0 [juvenile literature]

I've always found it amusing that she was a strong proponent of the
work ethic: "Act first, get permission later", which is in direct
opposition to the military chain of command, despite her rank as Rear
Admiral of the US Navy.

See also

	ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
	https://awards.acm.org/hopper
	https://awards.acm.org/hopper/award-winners

	[Awarded to the outstanding young computer professional of the
	year, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical
	or service contribution. This award is accompanied by a prize
	of $35,000. The candidate must have been 35 years of age or
	less at the time the qualifying contribution was
	made. Financial support of the Grace Murray Hopper Award is
	provided by Microsoft.]

Don Knuth of Stanford was the first GMHA winner, in 1971; other
well-known people include Steve Wozniak (1971), Bob Metcalf (1980),
Dan Bricklin (1981), Brian Reid (1982), Bill Joy (1986), John
Ousterhout (1987), Guy Steele (1988), Richard Stallman (1990), Bjarne
Stroustrup (1993), Vern Paxson (2007), Craig Gentry (2010), ...

There is also a 1983 interview on a popular US news broadcast that
celebrates its 50th anniversary this year:

	The 60 Minutes interview with Grace Murray Hopper
	https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-60-minutes-interview-with-grace-murray-hopper/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dave Horsfall]

On Fri, 8 Dec 2017, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:

> I've always found it amusing that she was a strong proponent of the work 
> ethic: "Act first, get permission later", which is in direct opposition 
> to the military chain of command, despite her rank as Rear Admiral of 
> the US Navy.

Thanks!  Now noted in my calendar...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[William Cheswick]

I plan to show some nanoseconds to some second-graders.

[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Dan Cross]

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe at math.utah.edu>
wrote:

> [...]
> I've always found it amusing that she was a strong proponent of the
> work ethic: "Act first, get permission later", which is in direct
> opposition to the military chain of command, despite her rank as Rear
> Admiral of the US Navy.
>

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic, but I'm going to actually disagree with
this to some extent. In the Naval Services, we're used to bucking the
chain; this has even been codified in the US Marine Corps doctrine of
distributed operations and maneuver warfare [*]; the idea is that the
people on the ground know the local situation best, so empower them to make
decisions in accordance with the overall commander's intent. Sure, you
understand that those decisions aren't going to be perfect, but that's ok.
In this way, RDML Hopper was following a long and noble tradition of the
United States Navy.

        - Dan C.
          (Former Captain, US Marines)

[*] See MCDP-1: Warfighting.
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCDP%201%20Warfighting.pdf
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[TUHS] Grace Hopper

[Rudi Blom]

Probably most read about it, but just FYI

"Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton awarded Presidential Medal of
Freedom for computing advances"
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/17/grace-hopper-and-margaret-hamilton-awarded-presidential-medal-of-freedom-for-computing-advances/

Grace's wiki page shows a 'real' computer bug :-)