Hopper, Grace Murray

Hopper, Grace Murray

(1906–1992) American

Computer Scientist

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was an innovator in the development of high-level computer languages in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known for her role in the develop-ment of COBOL, which became the premier language for business data processing.

Hopper was born in New York City. She graduated with honors with a B.A. in mathematics and physics from Vassar College in 1928, and went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics at Yale University. She taught at Vassar from 1931 to 1943, when she joined the U.S. Naval Reserve at the height of World War II. As a lieutenant (J.G.), she was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance, where she worked in the Computation Project at Harvard under pioneer com-puter designer Howard Aiken (see Aiken, Howard). She became one of the first “coders” (that is, programmers) for the Mark I. After the war, Hopper worked for a few years in Harvard’s newly established Computation Laboratory. In 1949, however, she became senior mathematician at the Eckert-Mauchly Corporation, the world’s first commercial computer company, where she helped with program design for the famous UNIVAC. She stayed with what became the UNIVAC division under Remington Rand (later Sperry Rand) until 1971.

While working with UNIVAC, Hopper’s main focus was on the development of programming languages that could allow people to use symbolic names and descriptive state-ments instead of binary codes or the more cryptic forms of assembly language (see assembler). In 1952, she developed A-0, the first compiler (that is, a program that could trans-late language statements to the corresponding low-level machine instructions). She then developed A-2 (a compiler that could handle mathematical expressions), and then in 1957 she developed Flow-Matic. This was the first compiler that worked with English-like statements and was designed for a business data processing environment.

In 1959, Hopper joined with five other computer scien-tists to plan a conference that would eventually result in the development of specifications for a “Common Business Lan-guage.” Her earlier work with Flow-Matic and her design input played a key role in the development of what would become the COBOL language.

Hopper retained her Navy commission and even after her retirement in 1966 she was recalled to active duty to work on the Navy’s data processing needs. She finally retired in 1986 with the rank of rear admiral. Hopper spoke widely about data processing issues, especially the need for standards in computer language and architecture, the lack of which she said cost the government billions of dollars in wasted resources. Admiral Hopper died on January 1, 1992, in Arlington, Virginia.

Hopper received numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the National Medal of Technology. (The navy named a suitably high-tech Aegis destroyer after her in 1996.) The Association for Computing Machines (ACM) created the Grace Murray Hopper Award to honor distin-guished young computer professionals. Hopper has become a role model for many girls and young women considering careers in computing.