V · Craft & community
Grace Hopper
1906–1992
US Navy Rear Admiral · creator of the first compiler
Gave us
A-0, the first compiler (1952). FLOW-MATIC, which became COBOL. The argument that programming languages should be human-readable.
The story
Joined the Navy at 37, retired at 79 (the Navy kept calling her back). Carried "nanoseconds" — 11.8-inch lengths of wire — to demonstrate the distance light travels in a billionth of a second. Found the original "computer bug" — a literal moth in the Mark II.
One more thing
The moth, taped into a logbook with the note "first actual case of bug being found", is in the Smithsonian.