Grace Hopper: Admiral Of The Cyber Sea (Library of Naval Biography)

Rating:
Summary: An admirable lady described by less admirable author
Review: I had a chance to hear Grace Hopper speak in 1970's in the early days of my own computer career. She was impressive then, and, after reading this book, I'm even more impressed by her career and her accomplishments, which were underrepresented in the 'computing history' to which I had previously been exposed. Through interviews and delving into untold amount of original source material, Ms. Williams has found MANY fascinating tidbits about Grace and the environment in which she lived and worked. For example, Grace DIDN'T invent the term computer bug. However, the interesting facts are strung together in an oft times confusing narrative - it took me much longer to read than usual. And the index didn't mention her engaging physical representation of a nanosecond. A worthwhile book, nonetheless, for those interested in computing history, and/or women who made a difference in technology.

Rating:
Summary: The Admiral was a lady.
Review: I was at a coctail party at a computer show when this lady in a white Navy uniform came it. It was Grace Hopper. Someone asked her for an autograph. Admirals don't need to carry pens around, so I promptly offered her mine. And after she signed one of her business cards for him, I said that I'd like one also, so she signed another. I still have it.

This all came back to me as soon as I saw this book. I picked it up, I opened it to a page where it talks about her first reporting to Howard Aiken at Harvard to work on the Mark I computer. Aiken handed her a manual and told her to write a program. Almost exactly twenty years after she was given the manual, the Army did exactly the same to me - here's a manual, here's the equasion I want solved.

Even in her advanced years at the time I met her, she was still one very bright lady. This was in the very early days of the PC, and she had a basic understanding that enabled her to predict many of the things that were going to happen while the rest of were stumbling around thinking about word processing.

Grace Hopper was quite a lady, and that's reflected in this book. Between 1934 and 1937 hers was the only Ph.D. in mathematics awarded to a female. It was quite a life that she led, and that too is reflected in this book. Adm. Hopper lived in a time when women didn't need to be educated, they were just going to be housewives, and they certainly weren't going to be Navy Admirals. This book is a story of one remarkable woman, but more than that it's the story of computing and of our changing times.