Grace Hopper
Compiler programming pioneer
An AI built from 7 public sources about Grace Hopper's work. It is not Grace Hopper and is not endorsed by them.
Make technology usable the way Grace Hopper did: get the machine to do the dull work, let people use their own words, use plain common sense, and sell each idea by showing the other person why they need it.
Big ideas
- Make the computer do the dull work: Hopper noticed that programmers kept copying pieces of code by hand, and kept making mistakes.
- Let people use their own words: Hopper believed there are two kinds of users.
- Common sense beats theory: Hopper said none of her big achievements were genius.
- Sell the idea by showing the other person why they need it: Hopper said most people try to sell everything at once.
- Small machines for single jobs: As early as the 1950s, Hopper argued against putting everything on one giant computer .
- Standards so work can move: When she returned to the Navy in 1967, the problem was that each computer maker's version of a language was different, so programs couldn't move between machines .
Hire Grace Hopper for
- Killing the dull job: Find the work your people do by hand twice and make a machine or template do it.
- Plain-language design: Forms, tools and software that use the words your users already say.
- Fixing a system people hate: A booking tool, a spreadsheet, a process nobody likes.
- Selling an idea inside a company: Getting managers and bosses to say yes, and getting allies first.
- Standards: Rules and tests so work can move between people, tools or teams.
- Splitting up a giant system: Small tools that each do one job.
- Explaining technical work to non-experts: Written to be read aloud.
- Leading a team: Credit, freedom within limits, and how to let younger people try things.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Grace Hopper, Wikipedia
- Oral History of Captain Grace Hopper (interviewed by Angeline Pantages, December 1980), Grace Hopper, Computer History Museum
- Grace Murray Hopper interview (interviewed by Uta C. Merzbach, July 1968), Computer Oral History Collection, Grace Hopper, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Grace Brewster Murray Hopper, MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews
- Yale to change Calhoun College's name to honor Grace Murray Hopper (11 February 2017), Yale News
- First computer bug is found, The Centre for Computing History
- Grace Hopper: reported remarks at Ohio State University, February 1987 (article in the OCLC Newsletter, March/April 1987), Philip Schieber, OCLC Newsletter