"Amazing Grace" Hopper: Setting Sail for the Digital Age

Aram Baghdassarian, Kevin Ho, and Kevin HuiGroup WebsiteSenior Division

Process Paper Word Count: 478

When looking for a topic, our group searched in the area that all three of us were most

passionate about: programming. This is what powers some of the most proliferous technology

today. With all three group members being adamant programmers, we desired to find out more

about the person who made programming possible in the first place — Grace Hopper.

At the very beginning of our research, we hoped to find various thorough primary

sources. One of the most useful primary sources we found was Grace Hopper's keynote address

in 1981 at a conference concerning the current status of programming languages. This provided

us with an in-depth understanding of Grace Hopper’s creations and their impacts on the world.

Another useful source was the autobiography of Russel McGee. This autobiography helped us

find a fresh perspective on Hopper from someone else’s point of view. Not only did McGee

have first-hand experience about Hopper, but he provided a developed opinion about her and her

work. As we were searching for more sources, we came across a novel about Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Kurt Beyer. We checked this book

out from our local library, read through it, and after seeing how knowledgeable Kurt Beyer was

on Grace Hopper decided to schedule a phone interview with the author. From our interview

with him we gained valuable insight on Hopper’s achievements and obstacles. Through a

previous interview we found between Angeline Pantages and Grace Hopper we were able to gain

a sense of the more personal characteristics of Hopper: her leadership, daringness, and audacity.

This helped us form our thesis about Hopper revolutionizing the Digital Age.

With Grace Hopper being the reason we can write simple code today and all three group

members having extensive programming knowledge, we felt it was only fitting that we created a

website about Hopper. Without Grace Hopper’s innovation, people would not be able to create

websites, yet they still would be able to create papers, exhibits, documentaries, and

performances. Therefore, to show how we still feel the impacts of Hopper’s ingenuity today, we

chose to create a website.

In Grace Hopper’s time, the idea of creating a programming language that could be

converted into a convoluted form that computers could read was absurd. Despite the lack of

interest in this area, Hopper chose to explore this possibility of having simple programming

languages so that computers could be programmed in a language that humans understand — and

it paid off. Along her journey, she encountered various obstacles including public opposition and

gender restrictions. She exchanged her ideas with the youth and her compiler with the world.

After retirement, Hopper spent much time teaching youngsters about technology and delivering

her famous speed of light demonstration. The COBOL programming language that she created is

still the most common programming language for businesses today.