Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper (1906-1992), Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, and an early computer programmer. Developer of the first compiler for a computer programming language.

Table of contents

1 Sourced 2 Attributed 3 Quote about Grace Hopper 4 External links

Sourced

• It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
  • Cover of the July 1986 issue of the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine

• Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
  • Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Newsletter, March/April, 1987, No. 167 (editor/author is Philip Schieber)

Attributed

• A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.

• I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.

• Nobody believed that I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.

• The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
  • Possibly quoted in Computer Networks, 1st. ed (1981), by Andrew Tanenbaum, p. 168, without attribution.

• The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way."

• To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge.

Quote about Grace Hopper

• On COBOL: "But Grace, then anyone will be able to write programs!"

External links

• Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper