First person to write a computer compiler, total role model and awesome woman, SudoRoom gives a toast to Grace Hopper.
Although Grace was born into a well-to-do family, she worked her butt off to teach others and grow as a person. She could have led a chill life at the country club (and nothing against people who do!), but she pushed herself to get a P.h.D in math (1934) at a time when most women were intent on Mrs. Degrees. (Interestingly enough, the Harvard Gazette notes that prewar American women made up more math PhDs than in the postwar backtracking, when women focused more on becoming mothers and housewives).
Grace was a kickass teacher who was very concerned that her students could write well:
Unlike most math professors, she insisted that her students be able to write well. In her probability course, she began with a lecture on one of her favorite mathematical formulas and asked her students to write an essay about it.
These she would mark for clarity of writing and style. “I’d cover [an essay] up with ink, and I would get a rebellion that they were taking a math course not an English course,” she recalled. “Then I would explain, it was no use trying to learn math unless they could communicate it with other people.”
Throughout her life, she excelled at being able to translate scientific problems — such as those involving trajectories, fluid flows, explosions, and weather patterns — into mathematical equations and then into ordinary English. This talent helped to make her a good programmer.
- Grace Hopper, Computing Pioneer (Walter Isaacson)
