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Google Doodle Remembers Computing Pioneer Grace Hopper

Posted by samzenpus on from the original-programmer dept.

SternisheFan 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."

3 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:COBOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I knew somebody would bring that up. In defense of COBOL, 1. Look when it was invented. 2. Look how much staying power it has. 3. Look at the train wrecks caused by later efforts to make easier, more readable programming languages.

    COBOL looks pretty good when you consider all that.

  2. Re:Anybody who doesn't know ... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anybody on Slashdot who doesn't know who she is ... get the fuck out, because you're on the wrong website.

    You might try wrapping your head around this: obligatory XKCD.

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  3. Re:COBOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    Thank you for that.

    You see, Ms. Hopper, being ahead of her time in MANY respects, knew that programming should be easily done in a human readable fashion.

    Programming computers should be easy. Having difficult to learn languages defeats the purpose of these machines. Being able to program these things should be easy to everyone and the fact that it STILL isn't shows the ineptitude of the computer science world - or arrogance (dude, computers SHOULD be hard to program because it's for smart people or some such nonsense).

    Computers are a tool, The fact that computer languages haven't evolved much since the 1960s is pretty sad.

    ..

    Please oh please post a flame that languages have evolved so that I can spank you hardily - 50 years and we're still typing esoteric computer code?! Seriously?

    If you think that is the way it is, then YOU have NO imagination.