Grace Murray Hopper

Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 - January 1, 1992) was a pioneer in computer science and a rear admiral in the United States Navy. She is best known for developing the first compiler for a programming language and for playing a key role in the creation of COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), one of the earliest high-level programming languages. Her vision of making programming languages more accessible allowed more people to work with computers without needing to understand machine code. Her legacy was instrumental in the development of modern software and business-oriented programming.

Quotes

• From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.
• If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
• I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.
• The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way.
• Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
• At present, we're putting on paper a lot of stuff that never needed to be on paper. We do need to keep the records. But there isn't any reason for printing them. The next generation growing up with the computers will change that.