“A program that translates machine language into human language, which is what COBOL is based off. You can thank Grace for being able to have an app on your iPhone, and the same app on your friend’s Android.” “But she came up with the idea of a compiler,” she said. Hopper is associated with the creation of the COBOL language, one of the first high-level programming languages, Pierce said. “She knew that you should hold onto really good people and make concessions for them.” Hopper never forgot to credit the female team that worked with her. “Grace was incredible about the women she worked with,” Pierce said.

It was long before then that Hopper learned how to understand machines.Īs a young girl, Hopper took apart seven alarm clocks to learn how they worked and how to fix them. “It illustrates the point that she wasn’t afraid to break things apart,” Pierce said. Upon acceptance, Hopper was assigned to work on the Harvard Mark I: a 10,000-pound computer used in World War II. Hopper was denied the first two times for being underweight and holding a job too important to national security. She was a mathematics professor before she joined the Navy on her third try during World War II. Hopper didn’t learn how to program until she was 37 years old. “But it’s not what we should know of her.”

“Grace made it famous because she found the first actual bug,” Pierce said. Hopper is known for coining the term “debugging” after finding a moth in a computer. “But when there are 12 films about Steve Jobs, another in the making, there needs to be one for Grace.” “I never thought I would make a film about her,” said Pierce, executive director of Chicago Women Developers. 9 would have been Hopper’s 110th birthday. Navy rear admiral Hopper in a new documentary, “Born with Curiosity: The Grace Hopper Story.” It’s set to release in December 2016 – Dec. Pierce is unveiling the colorful life of computer scientist and U.S. Local filmmaker Melissa Pierce presented 10 “life hacks” by Grace Hopper at the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center March 11 at an event sponsored by the Women in Science and Engineering Program. NavyĬomputer programmers know how to hack, but Grace Hopper knew much more - she was a life hacker. Grace Hopper “had this spirit that students could learn from,” says Women in Science and Engineering director Veronica Arreola.

Computer life hacks