Grace Murray Hopper Park
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You could make a strong case for Grace Murray Hopper being the most important person in the history of software.
She was a theorist: her idea that programming syntax should be as close as possible to English, instead of machine code, was integral to COBOL, a language that seems antequated now, but represented a quantum leap in developer productivity when it was introduced.
Hopper was also a hands-on coder: she wrote the first compiler and found the first literal bug in a system (a moth).
Down the street from me, in front of her old building, is a park named in her honor:
It's not a very large park. But still cool.
i was totally wondering who she was when i lived over there. thanks for pointing it out!
Posted by: stacy on April 10, 2005 11:22 PM | permalinkInterestingly enough she wasn't even the the first woman promoted to general/admiral level.
As it turns out she also came up with "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission".
I lived in that building for years and knew her from working the desk. Very nice person. She rented 3 apartments in that building and used most of all 3 as library space. She lugged home 2 large bags of stuff from the Pentagon everyday wherefrom she commuted on foot each day.
Posted by: Bill on April 29, 2008 3:58 PM | permalinkNo more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.