Admiral Grace Hopper, programming pioneer

Mar 09, 2016 by Madalina Botez in  Women In Tech

In celebration of Women’s Day, this March we salute yesterday & today women’s contribution to the development of the technology and IT fields. Follow #famousITwomen to find interesting stories. They might motivate and encourage you to do something out of the ordinary in your career. 

The importance of women in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math has been gaining a momentum in the last years. At I T.A.K.E. Unconference, we value women’s contribution in IT and we believe their dedication to the software craft can be an inspiration for other practitioners.

Help us meet other remarkable women, from your teams and communities! For the next 5 registrations at I T.A.K.E Unconference this week, we offer an invitation for a lady colleague to join! You will receive the discount code after registering. 

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After finding the professional journey of Franziska Sauerwein, software craftswoman speaking at I T.A.K.E Unconference, we invite to find more about United States Navy Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992). Often defined as a woman ahead of her time, she is one of the first programmers in the history.

 

The first bug

With a PhD degree in mathematics, she was part of WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, U.S. Naval Reserve), and later joined the programming team at the new Mark I computer, at Harvard University.

One famous anecdote kept perpetuating until today about her time in the Mark I team. One day a computer failure had Hopper and her team baffled. They opened the machine and they discovered the source of the problem: a live moth was stuck in one of the electrical switches controlling a circuit. Hopper taped the offending creature into her log book and noted beside it, “first actual bug found.” She is credited with the terms “bug” and “debug” for computer errors and how to fix them.

 

The A compiler

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Grace Hooper, UNIVAC, ~1960

Grace Hopper is also the creator of the A compiler, a program developed during her time at UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I – UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I).

After joining the consortium Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL), as technical consultant on the committee, she created a validation software for COBOL to make sure the language could perform its function. COBOL, which stands for “COmmon Business-Oriented Language”, is still used in order-processing business software today.

 
 
 

First woman to …

In the course of her lifetime, Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world, along with numerous awards and honors including:

  • 1st winner of “Computer Science Man of the Year” award from the Data Processing Management Association in 1969
  • 1st person from the United States and the first woman from any country to be made Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1973
  • 1st woman to receive the National Medal of Technology as an individual in 1991

The most important thing I’ve accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, ‘Do you think we can do this?’ I say, ‘Try it.’ And I back ’em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir ’em up at intervals so they don’t forget to take chances. 

 

Stay tuned & follow #famousITwomen! During the next days, we will share more stories about women who made & make history in IT.  If you want to meet remarkable software craftswomen, join us at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!

Help us meet other remarkable women, from your teams and communities! For the next 5 registrations at I T.A.K.E Unconference this week, we offer an invitation for a lady colleague to join! 

The week to celebrate #famousITwomen

Mar 09, 2015

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The week to celebrate women in IT kicks off. Let’s bring upfront the stories of #famousITwomen who’ve made breakthrough contributions along the history.

This week savour your coffee with 3 minutes inspirational stories that should be known by anyone in the industry. See how women paved the way to computers and software as we have them today. Here’s the first story.

Follow the upcoming stories on the I T.A.K.E. Unconference blogThey might be motivating and encouraging for you to do something out of the ordinary in your career. Stay tuned, as you may also find a win between and let yourself surprised by the contribution of #famousITwomen.

Software craftswomen: Alexandra Marin

Mar 24, 2016

In celebration of Women’s Day, this March we salute yesterday & today women’s contribution to the development of the technology and IT fields. Follow #famousITwomen to find interesting stories. They might motivate and encourage you to do something out of the ordinary in your career. 

The importance of women in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) has been gaining a momentum in the last years. At I T.A.K.E. Unconference, we value women’s contribution in IT and we believe their dedication to the software craft can be an inspiration for other practitioners.

Alexandra Marin, software craftswoman speaking at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016, shared more with us about her professional journey and lessons learnt in the IT field.

If you want to find more inspirational stories, we invite you to read also about Franziska Sauerwein, software craftswoman speaking at I T.A.K.E Unconference, and Grace Hopper, programming pioneer. Screen Shot 2016-03-23 at 6.52.20 PM

 

#1. What’s your professional story?

Why did you choose to develop a career in this domain?

Dopamine junkie who loves cracking puzzles. Had my first computer in middle school and by high school had taught myself how to code. One CS degree and a few freelancing/volunteering gigs later landed my first real developer job in Germany. My traditional office career was short lived though. I decided to check for myself if freelancers really go hungry looking for work, as I had repeatedly been warned.

Turns out I enjoy taking responsibility for my own career and remote work came with unexpected benefits. Working with people and causes I truly find compelling, making and sticking to my own work schedule (amazing for dev productivity if done right) and coming into teams as an equal partner are all pretty great side effects.

 

#2. Share with us a lesson you’ve learned since you’ve been working in IT

Maybe counterintuitive, but time and again I’ve seen collaboration putting you ahead of the game. So, experience pair programming & code retreats, make open source contributions, be a speaker, offer mentorship or get a mentor. Building a network beats whiteboard practice any day of the week as far as job hunting goes.

 

#3. Whom do you admire as a women IT practitioner? Why?

I appreciate makers like Simone Giertz and Sara Chipps, creator of Jewelbots, for tackling hardware and robotics. I empathize with Julie-Ann Horvath, ex-GitHub, for a situation all too common for women in tech. Also worth following on Twitter: Iris Classon, Pinterest’s Tracy Chou, and not women per-se, but the @CallbackWomen & @PowerToFly initiatives.

 

Curious to meet Alexandra? Join her @ I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock and Object Oriented Design

Mar 11, 2015

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The week to celebrate women in IT goes on with the woman who defined the Object Oriented Design – Rebecca Wirfs-Brock. Let’s bring upfront the stories of #famousITwomen who’ve made breakthrough contributions along the history. 

Object Oriented Design is about behaviors, not about entities and relations. We owe this idea to a woman: Rebecca Wirfs-Brock.

[Updated based on Rebecca’s feedback]

Early in her career, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock worked as a tester at Tektronix for graphics libraries. In those days, it was customary for testers to write just as much code as programmers in the form of automated tests. She decided to become a programmer because, despite the equally difficult work, testers were paid less than programmers. She became a principal engineer at Tektronix for Smalltalk, the language that inspired Java, Python and many others. This was a great opportunity for the industry, since she introduced the world to “Responsibility Driven Design”, the technique that influenced all modern design techniques such as TDD or BDD. Those of us who used UML owe her the idea of stereotypes. She now lives in Portland, and has been consulting enterprises on architecture and design for the past 30 years.

We were fortunate to have Rebecca a keynote speaker at I T.A.K.E. Unconference. You can watch her keynote below.



Hope Rebecca Wirfs-Brock’s story aroused your curiosity to learn from history more about IT famous women.

This week, stay tuned for the upcoming stories and win an invitation to I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2015. 

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