Google Doodle Remembers Computing Pioneer Grace Hopper

A reader writes "Monday's Google Doodle honors computing genius Grace Hopper (remembered as a great pioneer in computing, as well as in women's achievements in science and engineering), on what would have been her 107th birthday, doodling her right where she spent much of her time – at the helm of one of the world's first computers."

Grace Hopper Park

[Austrian Anarchy]

I always liked seeing the sign for Grace Hopper Park in Arlington, VA, in front of the apartment complex where she lived for years. Sadly, they did not put "Admiral" on the sign.

COBOL

[invid]

I think we can blame all the faults of COBOL on the fact that she wanted it to be human readable by business managers. What would your programming language look like if the Pointy-Haired Boss had to be able to understand it?

Re:Thanks, but

[ArcadeMan]

Really? I never see the Google "home page" anymore, I just type something into the address bar, if it's not a URL then it sends it as a search to Google and gives me the results

Yes, the Google logo on the left is a bit different than usual but not enough to tell me what it was about.

met her 30 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got to MEET her. I was a faculty brat at Syracuse where she was a graduation speaker, and through a lot of begging, my dad got me a seat at the speakers table, and she held forth, drinking straight scotch, smoking unfiltered Pall Malls and swearing for two hours. One of the best moments in my life. I'll never forget it, and she's been an inspiration through my career.

And I have a nanosecond.

Re:Whatever

[Entropius]

The realm of women is whatever they want it to be. There is substantial cultural inertia, especially in places like the Southeast US, that impedes young women from trying to "do computers and tech stuff", and so the lampshading of legitimate achievements made by folks like Hopper is no bad thing. Yes, were she male she wouldn't get quite as many accolades, but so? She was a pioneer, and there is no shame in pointing out to today's young women "want to become a computer scientist? You're in good company."

I have as much distaste for postmodern cultural wankery as you, but informing women that they are welcome in the scientific community ain't that.

I taught computational physics for a couple of years as a grad student. Of the students that I considered absolutely top-notch, about 60% were women (where the difference from 50% is statistical noise). As far as physics went, they were basically the same as the men.