Grace hopper is one of those iconic figures that really needs no introduction. Every time we call a computer glitch a bug, we should give a little nod to the grand lady of software. Admiral grace hopper, pioneering computer programmer. Grace hopper, amazing grace of computer history, gets. She developed validation software for cobol and its compiler as part of a cobol.
Grace hopper and the first computer bug station hypo. Hopper earned a phd in math and physics at yale before returning as a professor to her alma mater, vassar college. Whether grace hopper really was the first to coin the term bug is an open question but her version of the story is at least fun. Without bugs you find any hardware or software, it is just a matter of time. The term bug was used in an account by computer pioneer grace hopper, who publicized the cause of a malfunction in an early. This electromechanical nature of early computers is relevant as articles such as etymology of the computer bug. Grace hopper discovered the computer bug which was, literally, a bug. This is the first time a woman has ever given a presentation in this room, grace hopper was once told at the pentagon, as she was escorted to a meeting with the secretary of the navy. C a computer bug so primitive it was an actual insect. The original bug was a moth that caused a hardware fault in the mark ii.
Always ready to pioneer new methods of problemsolving, captain grace m. Grace hopper nee murray, a mathematician born in new york in 1906. Hopper is best known for her trailblazing contributions to computer programming, software development, and the design and implementation of programming languages. Was bug used to refer to software bugs before being popularized by grace hopper. Ask someone to identify the first computer bug, and he or she might mention computer programmer grace hopper and the dead moth found in a relay of harvard universitys mark ii electromechanical. In this lesson, well explore the life, inventions and contributions of a pioneering computer scientist and.
The hour of code project week always occurs in early december in celebration of the birthday of grace hopper who was born december 9, 1906. Grace brewster murray hopper 19061992 was a computer pioneer and naval officer. According to the history of computers website, by august 1944. Grace hopper, or amazing grace, was a united states navy rear admiral, an outstanding mathematician and a pioneering computer scientist. Her father, walter murray, was an insurance broker while her mother, mary van horne, had a love of mathematics which she passed on to her daughter. Log book with computer bug national museum of american history. First actual computer bug was found today, 66 years ago.
One of hoppers lesserknown claims to fame is that she was responsible for coining the term bug to describe a computer fault. The oed supplement records sense 4b of the noun bug a defect or. Her belief that programming languages should be as easily understood as english was highly influential on the development of one of. But not as rare a bird as an octogenarian in the computer industry, another distinction she would hold. Thomas edison talked about bugs in electrical circuits in the 1870s. A tech team member finds a moth in relay 70 panel f. As one of the highestranking females ever to serve in the navy, she was a rarity.
Grace hopper was born grace brewster murray, the oldest of three children. The story of finding the first computer bug, perhaps. It is produced by and presented in partnership with acm. Everything you need to know about grace hopper in six. The term bug was used in an account by computer pioneer grace hopper, who publicized the cause of a malfunction in an early electromechanical computer. And there is also no doubt about who was responsible for this. The other question is about computing bugs in general derived from hardware. In the same year, 1945 the term computer bug was first coined by grace murray hopper in the history of qa. Hopper got rid of it and fixed the problem and was the first person to debug a computer. She is also credited with coining the term computer bug when. Majority of bugs occur due to ignorance of developers. It doesnt even give an etymology of bug in software. Known as amazing grace and the first lady of software, hopper was at the forefront of computers and programming development from the 1940s through the 1980s, the citation read. For many years, the term bug had been in use in engineering.
Biography of grace murray hopper office of the president. If you dig a little deeper, though, it appears the use of bug to describe a technical problem has a complex historyand in fact, may not have originated with grace hopper at all. History of computer bug the term bug has been part of engineering jargon for many decades. What we can learn from grace hopper and the first reported bug. Its been originally in hardware engineering to describe mechanical malfunctions or. In 1946, when hopper was released from active duty, she joined the harvard faculty at the computation laboratory where she continued her work on the mark ii and mark iii.
Although the term bug had been used by engineers since the 19th century to describe a mechanical malfunction, hopper was the first to refer to a computer problem as a bug and to speak of debugging a computer. Grace hopper, born in new york in 1906, was an associate professor of mathematics at vassar when wwii broke out. Grace murray hopper had an impact on the computer youre using right now, but how. The term computer bug or software bug is ubiquitous in it. Hopper made history on september 9, 1947, by removing the first computer bug. A note made at the time explains, this was the first actual case of bug being found. Grace hopper celebration is the worlds largest gathering of women technologists. Was bug used to refer to software bugs before being popularized. Grace hopper was ordered to report to harvard university to work on the mark i, the behemoth digital computer that had been conceived by harvards howard aiken in 1937. She may not have coined the term, but she surely made it famous. The first bug in history software debugging youtube.
The invention of the term bug is often erroneously attributed to grace hopper. D, and united states navy rear admiral who alsoon top of everything elsehelped pioneer computer programming. In this video you find origin of software bug and harvard mark i computer video. A navy admiral and math whiz, she taught computers to talk. Us navy rear admiral grace hopper, who worked on this machine, was. Volunteering for the us navy reserve, she was assigned to the bureau of ships computation project, where she worked on the harvard mark i project a calculating machine used in the war effort, from 19449, coauthoring several papers. Navy rear admiral, grace hopper, was hard at work on the harvard mark ii computer when she suddenly. The first bug in history software debugging udacity. She was known as amazing grace for her many accomplishments. Both graces parents believed that she and her sister should have an education of the same quality as her brother.
Grace hopper was a pioneer in the field of computer science and for more than four decades was at the forefront of computing development in the u. The software testing subject is to be treated with highest priority as it can avoid the setback in the economy by preventing the failures of software. Grace hopper was a pioneering computer scientist and a rear admiral in the u. Did grace hopper really invent the term bug to describe software errors. Because if it wasnt for grace hopper and the moth she found wedged in the hulking mark ii computers relay, the computer bug might have been known by any other name. The queen of code 2015, a documentary film about grace hopper produced by fivethirtyeight. If you have been involved in open source or technology in general, chances are you have already heard several anecdotes about grace hopper. Computer programmer grace hopper helped develop a compiler that was a precursor to the widely used cobol language and became a rear admiral in the u. The term bugs in a computer had been used before, but after grace hopper wrote in her diary first actual case of bug being found the term became really popular, and thats why we are.
The mark i was acting up and giving incorrect results. Grace brewster murray hopper nee murray december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 was an. History records that the legendary grace hopper was the person who located the moth, and in so doing, helped popularise the idea of debugging computers. Welcome to the chips magazine grace murray hopper webpage. Hopper is credited with saying, first actual case of bug being found. If you dig a little deeper, though, it appears the use of bug to describe a technical problem has a complex history and in fact, may not have originated with grace hopper at all. During her long career in the united states navy, she was a key figure in the early days of modern computing. Grace hopper joined the us navy reserve in 1943, and a year later was promoted to lieutenant and stationed at the. United states navy admiral grace hopper 19061992 was one of the first programmers in the history of computers. Grace hopper and the univac eastmans online genealogy. It was a moth that got into the relay calculator and was the first actual case of a bug being found. This unique museum cafeteria showcases the history and regional diversity of. She is the person who has popularized the term computer bug and is also known as the queen of code for creating the first machineindependent programming language.
Afterward, the operators coined the phrase that they have debugged. Debugging the origins of bug did grace hopper really invent the term bug to describe software errors. The answer doesnt even mention wikipedias etymology, and in any case thats not a good enough source. In a fastmoving tech world, its worth taking time to remember grace hopper. Navy to the core, a pirate at heart 2014, to learn more about hopper s story and navy legacy navy. The origin of the term computer bug interesting engineering. The grace hopper papers in the national museum of american history nmah. This, of course, is a gross simplification of chaos theory and what is deemed the butterfly effect, but almost 70 years ago, a moth did change the world of technology, and this is why we are celebrating bug day. If a moth flaps its wing but no one is there to see it, can it still crash a harvard mark ii computer. History of qa evolution of qa software testing training. The problem was traced to a moth stuck between relay contacts in the computer, which hopper duly taped into the mark iis log book with the explanation.