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Vaidehi Joshi for Byte Sized

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Byte Sized Episode 1: Grace Hopper

Today's episode of Byte Sized is about Grace Hopper's contributions to computer history.

💬 If you know any more Grace Hopper factoids, leave a comment and let the community know!

Follow Byte Sized for an adventure through computer history, a few minutes at a time.

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Top comments (24)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

For quintessential Grace Hopper:

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vaidehijoshi profile image
Vaidehi Joshi

LOL i love the bit about hanging the wire around programmer's necks, hah!

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Ahaha the allegory about the wire length is amazing!

Don't go around wasting microseconds ;)

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liana profile image
Liana Felt (she/her)

Grace Hopper is a badass!

It was super fun working on this and I'm really excited for the rest of the episodes!

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johncip profile image
jmc • Edited

Great subject for your first ep.

There's a funny bit on the C2 wiki where someone recounted a story she told during one of her talks:

While working on the COBOL project for the Navy, she spoke before the Defense Appropriations Committee. She was requesting $80,000 to support developing a compiler. She presented a snippet of code in three languages: English, French and Russian, attempting to show that the language did not matter to the computer. The congressmen raised an uproar, because: "We don't want our computers speaking Russian."

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tanjent profile image
tanjent • Edited

Grace Hopper also had the best documented bug ever -- this is a page from the operators' journal for the Marc II computer, where she taped down the moth that worked its way inside and caused a short circuit.

Hopper's Journal

It's frequently said she coined the term "bug" and "debugging" based on this event, but that's apparently apocryphal, and the terms were in use prior to this. She was punning on this existing use in her journal.

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vaidehijoshi profile image
Vaidehi Joshi

Yes!!! I love how she found a real, live bug and that's the same phrase we use today :) I wish we could've included even more about her in the video (she did SO MUCH), but we wanted to keep them short and sweet, so we just focused on the compiler!

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andy profile image
Andy Zhao (he/him)

So excited for this!!!

Admiral Grace is definitely ADMIRable. 😁😁😁

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vaidehijoshi profile image
Vaidehi Joshi

HAHAH OMG ANDY WHY DIDNT I THINK OF THIS DAMN WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY!

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

😄

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olivergomes profile image
Oliver Gomes • Edited

This is so awesome! Amazing presentation can't wait for more :D

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michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

Loved this! ❤️

I actually tried to talk about Grace Hopper with my mom and got a bit tongue tied. I'm going to have to just show this video instead. 😀

Side note: loving the sound effects!

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vaidehijoshi profile image
Vaidehi Joshi

YAY! So glad that you're sharing it with her, GRACE IS THE BEST!

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jhuebel profile image
Jason Huebel • Edited

I hearted and unicorned this one! Love this!

EDIT: And followed! :-)

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

Love this format. Great stuff!

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cal_woolgar profile image
Cal

This is awesome and I can't wait for the next episode!

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