American Computer Scientists Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton Receive Presidential Medals of Freedom (fedscoop.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from FedScoop: President Barack Obama awarded Presidential Medals of Freedom to two storied women in tech -- one posthumously to Grace Hopper, known as the "first lady of software," and one to programmer Margaret Hamilton. Hopper worked on the Harvard Mark I computer, and invented the first compiler. "At age 37 and a full 15 pounds below military guidelines, the gutsy and colorful Grace joined the Navy and was sent to work on one of the first computers, Harvard's Mark 1," Obama said at the ceremony Tuesday. "She saw beyond the boundaries of the possible and invented the first compiler, which allowed programs to be written in regular language and then translated for computers to understand." Hopper followed her mother into mathematics, and earned a doctoral degree from Yale, Obama said. She retired from the Navy as a rear admiral. "From cell phones to Cyber Command, we can thank Grace Hopper for opening programming up to millions more people, helping to usher in the Information Age and profoundly shaping our digital world," Obama said. Hamilton led the team that created the onboard flight software for NASA's Apollo command modules and lunar modules, according to a White House release. "At this time software engineering wasn't even a field yet," Obama noted at the ceremony. "There were no textbooks to follow, so as Margaret says, 'there was no choice but to be pioneers.'" He added: "Luckily for us, Margaret never stopped pioneering. And she symbolizes that generation of unsung women who helped send humankind into space."

Comments

Re:I don't mean to sound like a downer

[Darinbob]

The applying part can be hard. Remember, no handy libraries to fall back on, no frameworks, no pre-built hardware components, no idea what was possible or even plausible. After all, physics is just mathematics applied to the real world.

Re:Is it just me...

[silentcoder]

No. Just because you value the field of their contributions more, does not mean that her contribution to her field was any less - or even that the field is any less important. And it's not your decision to make.
If you want to choose who gets presidential medals of freedom - run for president.

Re:Sexist Shite

[Macthorpe]

Are the feminazis still pushing sexist nonsense like this ? After what the electorate told them at the last election ?

I think what the election told feminists was that you can be on tape as admitting to abusing women and still get voted in as president?

That fact doesn't really shut feminists up so much as prove them right.

Re:I don't mean to sound like a downer

[serviscope_minor]

"Just" applied mathematics?

Yep. What she did was just applied mathematics. When the next story about not so female tech luminary comes up (Torvalds), we can go back to fawning all over him. No claims of "just applied mathematics" there or claims the achievements were overstated.