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Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
The career of computer visionary Grace Murray Hopper, whose innovative work in programming laid the foundations for the user-friendliness of today's personal computers that sparked the information age.
A Hollywood biopic about the life of computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) would go like this: a young professor abandons the ivy-covered walls of academia to serve her country in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and finds herself on the front lines of the computer revolution. She works hard to succeed in the all-male computer industry, is almost brought down by personal problems but survives them, and ends her career as a celebrated elder stateswoman of computing, a heroine to thousands, hailed as the inventor of computer programming. Throughout Hopper's later years, the popular media told this simplified version of her life story. In Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Kurt Beyer reveals a more authentic Hopper, a vibrant and complex woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry.
Both rebellious and collaborative, Hopper was influential in male-dominated military and business organizations at a time when women were encouraged to devote themselves to housework and childbearing. Hopper's greatest technical achievement was to create the tools that would allow humans to communicate with computers in terms other than ones and zeroes. This advance influenced all future programming and software design and laid the foundation for the development of user-friendly personal computers.
A Hollywood biopic about the life of computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) would go like this: a young professor abandons the ivy-covered walls of academia to serve her country in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and finds herself on the front lines of the computer revolution. She works hard to succeed in the all-male computer industry, is almost brought down by personal problems but survives them, and ends her career as a celebrated elder stateswoman of computing, a heroine to thousands, hailed as the inventor of computer programming. Throughout Hopper's later years, the popular media told this simplified version of her life story. In Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Kurt Beyer reveals a more authentic Hopper, a vibrant and complex woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry.
Both rebellious and collaborative, Hopper was influential in male-dominated military and business organizations at a time when women were encouraged to devote themselves to housework and childbearing. Hopper's greatest technical achievement was to create the tools that would allow humans to communicate with computers in terms other than ones and zeroes. This advance influenced all future programming and software design and laid the foundation for the development of user-friendly personal computers.
404 pages, Paperback
First published July 10, 2009
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1079 people want to read
About the author
Kurt W. Beyer
3 booksKurt W. Beyer is a former professor at the United States Naval Academy and lectures regularly on the process of technological innovation. He is a cofounder of a digital media services company and has authored multiple patents (pending) on high speed digital data processing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
January 14, 2010
I've long admired Grace Hopper but was relieved to read this biography in particular. Few biographical accounts of her go beyond "She was a pioneer!" and "She was a female computer programmer in the 1930s OMG!"
This biography goes into detail about her career and specific contributions (the development of the first compiler, programming methods, data flow charts, to name just a few things we still use regularly today). At times some of the material was even a bit dry for me, and I'm a geek (a trivial and far from pervasive shortcoming).
I appreciated the lack of "and she was FEMALE!" throughout the book, as other biographies of women often shove down one's throat, obviously and repeatedly. The author succeeds at pointing out that a substantial portion of the programming community was female, that it was not at all unusual at the time, and that there were more female Ph.D.s in mathematics during the 1930s than at almost any other time in history. It was so refreshing to hear facts rather than the usual simplistic Female Struggle story, and particularly one with such ample citation of primary resources, all too rare. Hurray for PRIMARY RESOURCE CITATIONS!
A cute anecdote resulted from my mentioning this book to my grandfather. He was a programmer at the Department of Defense for his entire career, but it never occurred to me that he may have known Grace Hopper - and he did. He said she was "quite a lady" and that he especially remembered her using wire to illustrate time across the computer.
This biography goes into detail about her career and specific contributions (the development of the first compiler, programming methods, data flow charts, to name just a few things we still use regularly today). At times some of the material was even a bit dry for me, and I'm a geek (a trivial and far from pervasive shortcoming).
I appreciated the lack of "and she was FEMALE!" throughout the book, as other biographies of women often shove down one's throat, obviously and repeatedly. The author succeeds at pointing out that a substantial portion of the programming community was female, that it was not at all unusual at the time, and that there were more female Ph.D.s in mathematics during the 1930s than at almost any other time in history. It was so refreshing to hear facts rather than the usual simplistic Female Struggle story, and particularly one with such ample citation of primary resources, all too rare. Hurray for PRIMARY RESOURCE CITATIONS!
A cute anecdote resulted from my mentioning this book to my grandfather. He was a programmer at the Department of Defense for his entire career, but it never occurred to me that he may have known Grace Hopper - and he did. He said she was "quite a lady" and that he especially remembered her using wire to illustrate time across the computer.
February 4, 2016
WHEW. I just finished getting through the notes for this book which constitute the last 20%.
I was fully expecting to give this book 4 stars, just because, it's a biography and thus can be challenging at times to push through, but the last chapter won that fifth star.
I went into this book thinking it was entirely about Grace Hopper, but it isn't. At first I was a bit disappointed, but again by the end I was grateful at the thoroughness in which the author decided to cover the "Invention of the Information Age."
So without further ado, some pros and cons:
Pros:
- Whether or not it is true, the author convinced me that DANG he had done his homework. Like I said, last 20% of the book is notes and references. WELL DONE, SIR.
- This goes into a LOT more depth than I was expecting. I not only got the factual recounting of the era, but also the feeling. There were so many times when I identified with the picture that was painted of Aiken's "ship," or the conferences, or Remington Rand. I felt like I was there, or had been.
- I appreciated the coverage of people I legit hadn't heard of who played a MAJOR role. I think in a lot of instances we find that ONE AWESOME PERSON and fly their flag around, like Grace, but other people who played just as large of a role get overlooked. I hadn't heard of Betty, Aiken, Mauchly, and about a billion other people. Considering Grace's methodologies for invention, I think she'd be disappointed to hear people know of her but not them.
- Speaking of methodologies, I LOVED the exploration of hers, whether things she explicitly said or things she obviously believed based on her actions.
- ABOUT A MILLION OTHER THINGS, but also that it goes into Grace's personal demons and struggles. They make me sad but also are a source of hope for those of us who feel stuck in a pit.
Cons:
- Sometimes it gets a bit repetitive. For certain things (like the last chapter), I understand the summary, but in the middle I felt like things were being covered that I had just read about. Not sure if that was actually true or just me hitting the reading wall, but I felt it.
- Likewise, every once in a while I'd be like, "OH MY GOSH I JUST WANT TO HEAR ABOUT GRACE!" Instances when we were on a train platform with a bunch of random* mathematicians, for example.
*They weren't random. BUT STILL.
- If you're insecure like me, you may spent at least a few chapters feeling depressed about how dumb you are compared to (apparently) everyone in the 40s and 50s. Seriously, for a while it felt like EVERYONE had degrees in mathematics and/or physics. If I were to make a drinking game for this book that would be one of the rules. But I wouldn't cause Grace struggled with alcoholism and that would be weird.
- Related to the above, I'm not sure how reading this book with zero programming background would work out. I think it does a good job of explaining stuff, but there is a certain amount of either assumed or unexplainable knowledge within this context. That might just be me pretending I know things, though. (Like I said, I spent a lot of the early portion of this book feeling dumber than a wall though.)
Overall, I would highly recommend this read to anyone in the tech field, especially someone who is interesting in relieving discrimination. Not even because that's really covered in this book explicitly, but because you can SEE it illustrated so clearly. Like in real life (oftentimes), the people who instigate it aren't TRYING, they aren't bad people, they just don't consider the ramifications of their internal biases and patterns of thinking. You can see how women react to it depending on their personalities and circumstances, such as how Grace Hopper and Betty Snyder-Holberton did. IT'S JUST SO REAL BECAUSE IT WAS. AND IS.
*Ahem*
If you are interested in computing, women in the workforce, WW2, or biographies: DO READ.
The end.
EDIT: Just kidding, not the end. Honestly I would skip the intro. It's awkward and unnecessary? Also, this is still a biography sooooo it's not a super exciting read. Just know that.
I was fully expecting to give this book 4 stars, just because, it's a biography and thus can be challenging at times to push through, but the last chapter won that fifth star.
I went into this book thinking it was entirely about Grace Hopper, but it isn't. At first I was a bit disappointed, but again by the end I was grateful at the thoroughness in which the author decided to cover the "Invention of the Information Age."
So without further ado, some pros and cons:
Pros:
- Whether or not it is true, the author convinced me that DANG he had done his homework. Like I said, last 20% of the book is notes and references. WELL DONE, SIR.
- This goes into a LOT more depth than I was expecting. I not only got the factual recounting of the era, but also the feeling. There were so many times when I identified with the picture that was painted of Aiken's "ship," or the conferences, or Remington Rand. I felt like I was there, or had been.
- I appreciated the coverage of people I legit hadn't heard of who played a MAJOR role. I think in a lot of instances we find that ONE AWESOME PERSON and fly their flag around, like Grace, but other people who played just as large of a role get overlooked. I hadn't heard of Betty, Aiken, Mauchly, and about a billion other people. Considering Grace's methodologies for invention, I think she'd be disappointed to hear people know of her but not them.
- Speaking of methodologies, I LOVED the exploration of hers, whether things she explicitly said or things she obviously believed based on her actions.
- ABOUT A MILLION OTHER THINGS, but also that it goes into Grace's personal demons and struggles. They make me sad but also are a source of hope for those of us who feel stuck in a pit.
Cons:
- Sometimes it gets a bit repetitive. For certain things (like the last chapter), I understand the summary, but in the middle I felt like things were being covered that I had just read about. Not sure if that was actually true or just me hitting the reading wall, but I felt it.
- Likewise, every once in a while I'd be like, "OH MY GOSH I JUST WANT TO HEAR ABOUT GRACE!" Instances when we were on a train platform with a bunch of random* mathematicians, for example.
*They weren't random. BUT STILL.
- If you're insecure like me, you may spent at least a few chapters feeling depressed about how dumb you are compared to (apparently) everyone in the 40s and 50s. Seriously, for a while it felt like EVERYONE had degrees in mathematics and/or physics. If I were to make a drinking game for this book that would be one of the rules. But I wouldn't cause Grace struggled with alcoholism and that would be weird.
- Related to the above, I'm not sure how reading this book with zero programming background would work out. I think it does a good job of explaining stuff, but there is a certain amount of either assumed or unexplainable knowledge within this context. That might just be me pretending I know things, though. (Like I said, I spent a lot of the early portion of this book feeling dumber than a wall though.)
Overall, I would highly recommend this read to anyone in the tech field, especially someone who is interesting in relieving discrimination. Not even because that's really covered in this book explicitly, but because you can SEE it illustrated so clearly. Like in real life (oftentimes), the people who instigate it aren't TRYING, they aren't bad people, they just don't consider the ramifications of their internal biases and patterns of thinking. You can see how women react to it depending on their personalities and circumstances, such as how Grace Hopper and Betty Snyder-Holberton did. IT'S JUST SO REAL BECAUSE IT WAS. AND IS.
*Ahem*
If you are interested in computing, women in the workforce, WW2, or biographies: DO READ.
The end.
EDIT: Just kidding, not the end. Honestly I would skip the intro. It's awkward and unnecessary? Also, this is still a biography sooooo it's not a super exciting read. Just know that.
January 18, 2010
This book is not what it might seem, but I am not complaining. It is not a biography of Grace Hopper, although it does not claim to be. It is a story of how one woman influenced the development of the machine I am typing on now and the software that allows you and me to communicate.
Beyer tells us that Grace Hopper was a mathematics professor who left her husband to apply her skills to the war effort, but never tells us if she ever went on a date again. He tells us that she was an alcoholic, but does not go into the possible origins of her disease nor does he discuss how she overcame it (or, actually, if sh every really did).
What Beyer does do remarkably well us use Hopper's story to get us reading about how computers developed out of the need to make very complex calculations of fluid mechanics (specifically for the invention of the atomic bomb), how early machines were so expensive to run that it was actually cheaper to have mathematicians do the calculating, and how Grace Hopper had an idea for a compiler that make computer code run more automatically. Because of Hopper's idea, you are able to read this and respond.
Yes, Hopper faced sexism, but what was also amazing was how many women were in the nascent computing field with her (many started as code writers, with the idea that hiring women would be one way to cut the costs of running one of the early room-sized machines).
Beyer tells us that Hopper was one of the first proponents of open-source computing, studied everything she could get her hands on, was a people person (as alcoholics often are) and that she innovated by passing her new ideas on to the young staff to work on, because they had no inherent biases.
This is an excellent book, and if you have any interest at all in how your computer was developed, you will be able to follow Beyer's clear writing and patient explanations.
Beyer tells us that Grace Hopper was a mathematics professor who left her husband to apply her skills to the war effort, but never tells us if she ever went on a date again. He tells us that she was an alcoholic, but does not go into the possible origins of her disease nor does he discuss how she overcame it (or, actually, if sh every really did).
What Beyer does do remarkably well us use Hopper's story to get us reading about how computers developed out of the need to make very complex calculations of fluid mechanics (specifically for the invention of the atomic bomb), how early machines were so expensive to run that it was actually cheaper to have mathematicians do the calculating, and how Grace Hopper had an idea for a compiler that make computer code run more automatically. Because of Hopper's idea, you are able to read this and respond.
Yes, Hopper faced sexism, but what was also amazing was how many women were in the nascent computing field with her (many started as code writers, with the idea that hiring women would be one way to cut the costs of running one of the early room-sized machines).
Beyer tells us that Hopper was one of the first proponents of open-source computing, studied everything she could get her hands on, was a people person (as alcoholics often are) and that she innovated by passing her new ideas on to the young staff to work on, because they had no inherent biases.
This is an excellent book, and if you have any interest at all in how your computer was developed, you will be able to follow Beyer's clear writing and patient explanations.
November 12, 2017
Grace Hopper was a pioneer in the history of computing and this book gives an insight into her commendable achievements, which are so relevant even to this day. She was one of the first ones to develop a subroutine that we use relentlessly in our code today. But her main achievement is the invention of a compiler, and she was the mastermind behind the COBOL language.
The first few chapters of this biography focus more on the evolution of the computing world during the WW II, with a considerable mention of Hopper's contributions. But it is the latter half of the book that piques the interest, when Grace Hopper makes significant contributions to the computing world. Some of the interesting reads are about how she managed the computing laboratory at Remington Rand, her interest in automatic programming which led to the invention of compiler, supporting distributed invention by sharing of knowledge among industry competitors that eventually led to a common compiler COBOL.
The author ends the book on a good note highlighting Hopper's exceptional qualities and capabilities.
Crisp and well-written biography.
The first few chapters of this biography focus more on the evolution of the computing world during the WW II, with a considerable mention of Hopper's contributions. But it is the latter half of the book that piques the interest, when Grace Hopper makes significant contributions to the computing world. Some of the interesting reads are about how she managed the computing laboratory at Remington Rand, her interest in automatic programming which led to the invention of compiler, supporting distributed invention by sharing of knowledge among industry competitors that eventually led to a common compiler COBOL.
The author ends the book on a good note highlighting Hopper's exceptional qualities and capabilities.
Crisp and well-written biography.
August 26, 2019
I was expanding my horizons by reading this but it was really dry and I don't understand much about computers so it was double dry.
May 11, 2016
Hopper is one of the most famous early computing pioneers. But until I read this book I didn't really understand what she really did, or who she was. This book is not a general biography. The first 35 years of her life are dealt with in one chapter, as are the last 30 or so. Most of the book is dedicated to her time as a computing pioneer, roughly 1943 until 1960 -- from when she joined the navy until the adoption of the COBOL standard. That period involved quite enough achievement to justify a book.
At the start of 1942, Hopper was a successful tenured mathematics professor at Vassar. As the year went on, she found herself increasingly frustrated and increasingly eager to join the war effort. Late that year, she joined the WAVES, expecting to be put to work on cryptography. Meanwhile, Howard Aiken at Harvard had convinced the Navy to fund his computing project, and had requested mathematically talented officers to assist hijm. As usual with Navy personnel decisions, people didn't get what they wanted -- Hopper was sent off to Cambridge to serve under Aiken.
Aiken ran the Harvard Mark I like a warship. There was a team of officers, headed by Aiken and with Hopper as de facto #2, and then a set of enlisted ratings "standing watch" 24 hours a day running jobs on the machine. The programming environment was pretty minimal: a program was put in as a punched paper tape, with the holes in the tape setting machine switches for each instruction. There was also a plugboard, for what we might call microcode. Hopper (with her mathematical training) was responsible for writing these programs -- figuring out how to get the machine to do useful work, like producing ballistic tables of the appropriate precision or to numerically integrate complex partial-differential equations.
This background had two important consequences. After the war, she was one of the first people to see the importance of "automatic programming." She also had a valuable social network to draw on -- there was a substantial Harvard diaspora.
She really did invent the compiler, as much as anybody can be said to have done so. The first iterations of this ("A-0") were of course quite primitive -- more like macro assemblers than compilers as we know them. But even the insight of "we can write computer programs to translate higher-level text to machine language" is quite a profound one. And she followed that up by pushing for the highest-possible level of abstraction -- she understood exactly what the ultimate goal was.
She was an adroit bureaucratic maneuverer, and fought successfully to get her ideas standardized. She managed to stack the CODASYL language-design committee with her friends, and got them to adopt a spec for the "common business language" (COBOL) that was virtually identical to her existing "FlowMatic" system. There was a lot wrong with the COBOL design of course, but nobody had ever designed a language before and "make programming as english-like as possible" was a perfectly plausible idea that happened not to work.
The narrative is reasonably well told. There is enough technical detail and context for me to understand what she did and why it mattered; there was enough personal detail to understand who she was as a person. I do wish there had been more about her as a person -- I'd have liked a better understanding of what made her so talented and driven, and left her so willing to abandon her professorial career and start a new one.
At the start of 1942, Hopper was a successful tenured mathematics professor at Vassar. As the year went on, she found herself increasingly frustrated and increasingly eager to join the war effort. Late that year, she joined the WAVES, expecting to be put to work on cryptography. Meanwhile, Howard Aiken at Harvard had convinced the Navy to fund his computing project, and had requested mathematically talented officers to assist hijm. As usual with Navy personnel decisions, people didn't get what they wanted -- Hopper was sent off to Cambridge to serve under Aiken.
Aiken ran the Harvard Mark I like a warship. There was a team of officers, headed by Aiken and with Hopper as de facto #2, and then a set of enlisted ratings "standing watch" 24 hours a day running jobs on the machine. The programming environment was pretty minimal: a program was put in as a punched paper tape, with the holes in the tape setting machine switches for each instruction. There was also a plugboard, for what we might call microcode. Hopper (with her mathematical training) was responsible for writing these programs -- figuring out how to get the machine to do useful work, like producing ballistic tables of the appropriate precision or to numerically integrate complex partial-differential equations.
This background had two important consequences. After the war, she was one of the first people to see the importance of "automatic programming." She also had a valuable social network to draw on -- there was a substantial Harvard diaspora.
She really did invent the compiler, as much as anybody can be said to have done so. The first iterations of this ("A-0") were of course quite primitive -- more like macro assemblers than compilers as we know them. But even the insight of "we can write computer programs to translate higher-level text to machine language" is quite a profound one. And she followed that up by pushing for the highest-possible level of abstraction -- she understood exactly what the ultimate goal was.
She was an adroit bureaucratic maneuverer, and fought successfully to get her ideas standardized. She managed to stack the CODASYL language-design committee with her friends, and got them to adopt a spec for the "common business language" (COBOL) that was virtually identical to her existing "FlowMatic" system. There was a lot wrong with the COBOL design of course, but nobody had ever designed a language before and "make programming as english-like as possible" was a perfectly plausible idea that happened not to work.
The narrative is reasonably well told. There is enough technical detail and context for me to understand what she did and why it mattered; there was enough personal detail to understand who she was as a person. I do wish there had been more about her as a person -- I'd have liked a better understanding of what made her so talented and driven, and left her so willing to abandon her professorial career and start a new one.
May 1, 2015
A very good summary of the life of Grace Hopper, the third programmer ever, creator of the first compiler A-0 and its subsequent versions A-1 and A-2, driving force behind making programming languages more pseudo-English (instead of mathematical script), possibly inventor of comments in programming (she wrote mathematical formulas with pencil on the punched cards that were fed to the computers), ex-alcoholic, teacher, navy-woman, co-inventor of "debugging" ("bug" was already a word for problems earlier, but debugging became literal when a moth caused a breakdown in an early computer), always a force to make computing more open to the public.
Some parts feature less of Hopper and more of "the invention of the information age", especially those with Aiken, where Hopper as a "character" takes a step back. She had an interesting style of invention - during her wartime work, necessity was the mother of invention ("we need these bombing tables and we need them yesterday", so sub-routines were invented so several problems could be attacked at once), but after it, much of her work was inspired by making programming easier and more accessible - less formulas, more English, and a ton of teaching to get more people into programming. A very inspiring story.
There are other very interesting parts here - in describing Hopper's way of "distributed invention" I was often reminded of Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", her work was immediately shared with the community of programmers and mathematicians and their ideas were implemented ("Bazaar"-style invention, here called "distributed invention") which led to many improvements in A-1 and A-2. On the other hand, her work in the committee that designed COBOL was more of a "Cathedral" situation - a top-down committee of experts that first wrote the standard, then implemented the language.
Other parts reminded me of Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month" - some of their early day "tricks" with the Mark 1 computers (such as a library of subroutines so they'd have code that has been shown to work correctly, for example, the sin() function) is repeated as a tip in Brooks' book. And there's only about 40 years in between!
General Groves, who plays a relatively important part in Ray Monk's biography of Oppenheimer as Oppenheimer's "military counterpart" at the Manhattan Project, re-appears here as one of Hopper's bosses at Remington Rand. What a weird coincidence.
Of course, no history book wouldn't be without some ridiculously dry parts. This is definitely not "pop" history! I had to make more coffee when it came to the details of which committee did what and how their roles were defined, who sat at which position etc. during the creation of COBOL.
Recommended for: People interested in the history of computing or computers
Not recommended for: People who don't get a laugh out of this picture
Some parts feature less of Hopper and more of "the invention of the information age", especially those with Aiken, where Hopper as a "character" takes a step back. She had an interesting style of invention - during her wartime work, necessity was the mother of invention ("we need these bombing tables and we need them yesterday", so sub-routines were invented so several problems could be attacked at once), but after it, much of her work was inspired by making programming easier and more accessible - less formulas, more English, and a ton of teaching to get more people into programming. A very inspiring story.
There are other very interesting parts here - in describing Hopper's way of "distributed invention" I was often reminded of Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", her work was immediately shared with the community of programmers and mathematicians and their ideas were implemented ("Bazaar"-style invention, here called "distributed invention") which led to many improvements in A-1 and A-2. On the other hand, her work in the committee that designed COBOL was more of a "Cathedral" situation - a top-down committee of experts that first wrote the standard, then implemented the language.
Other parts reminded me of Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month" - some of their early day "tricks" with the Mark 1 computers (such as a library of subroutines so they'd have code that has been shown to work correctly, for example, the sin() function) is repeated as a tip in Brooks' book. And there's only about 40 years in between!
General Groves, who plays a relatively important part in Ray Monk's biography of Oppenheimer as Oppenheimer's "military counterpart" at the Manhattan Project, re-appears here as one of Hopper's bosses at Remington Rand. What a weird coincidence.
Of course, no history book wouldn't be without some ridiculously dry parts. This is definitely not "pop" history! I had to make more coffee when it came to the details of which committee did what and how their roles were defined, who sat at which position etc. during the creation of COBOL.
Recommended for: People interested in the history of computing or computers
Not recommended for: People who don't get a laugh out of this picture
March 21, 2016
Summary: Grace Hopper's story was fascinating and inspiring, but the writing was sometimes repetitive.
This is the first book I've finally picked up for my Women in Science History event this month. I'm already excited for next year just so I can do more with this event! Anyway, Grace Hopper was one of the fantastic female scientists in Headstrong who particularly caught my attention, in part because I'm aware of a computing conference named after her, but didn't previously know about her work. It turns out that she invented the first compiler, a program that allows us to use higher level, human readable programming languages by converting them to machine readable languages.
I think the author generally did a very good job explaining the importance of each of Hopper's contributions to the nascent field of computer programming in easily understandable terms, although even as a programmer I did sometimes have a hard time imagining how things used to be! I also enjoyed the author's comprehensive approach to telling Hopper's story, highlighting not only her technical abilities, but her ability to communicate the importance of her own work, to collaborate even with people who might be prejudiced against her because of her gender, and to bring disparate people together in productive collaborations. The book seemed well cited and as far as I could tell, the author fairly gave Hopper credit where it was due and also made clear where someone else deserved credit and where attribution of credit for an idea is still contentious.
On a sentence-by-sentence level, I wasn't entirely impressed with the writing. There were several places where information was repeated verbatim. Additionally, strangely constructed sentences and/or typos were far more common than I would expect in a professionally edited book. The writing could also have been more engaging. Fortunately, Hopper's story was interesting enough to easily carry the book. The overall organization helped with this. The author did a great job putting Hopper's work in context. I particularly enjoyed the last chapter, where the author highlighted the important themes in Hopper's life and work. I thought it was an interesting and educational look at the factors that enabled her to have such an incredibly successful career.
This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
This is the first book I've finally picked up for my Women in Science History event this month. I'm already excited for next year just so I can do more with this event! Anyway, Grace Hopper was one of the fantastic female scientists in Headstrong who particularly caught my attention, in part because I'm aware of a computing conference named after her, but didn't previously know about her work. It turns out that she invented the first compiler, a program that allows us to use higher level, human readable programming languages by converting them to machine readable languages.
I think the author generally did a very good job explaining the importance of each of Hopper's contributions to the nascent field of computer programming in easily understandable terms, although even as a programmer I did sometimes have a hard time imagining how things used to be! I also enjoyed the author's comprehensive approach to telling Hopper's story, highlighting not only her technical abilities, but her ability to communicate the importance of her own work, to collaborate even with people who might be prejudiced against her because of her gender, and to bring disparate people together in productive collaborations. The book seemed well cited and as far as I could tell, the author fairly gave Hopper credit where it was due and also made clear where someone else deserved credit and where attribution of credit for an idea is still contentious.
On a sentence-by-sentence level, I wasn't entirely impressed with the writing. There were several places where information was repeated verbatim. Additionally, strangely constructed sentences and/or typos were far more common than I would expect in a professionally edited book. The writing could also have been more engaging. Fortunately, Hopper's story was interesting enough to easily carry the book. The overall organization helped with this. The author did a great job putting Hopper's work in context. I particularly enjoyed the last chapter, where the author highlighted the important themes in Hopper's life and work. I thought it was an interesting and educational look at the factors that enabled her to have such an incredibly successful career.
This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
December 20, 2019
A well written look into life at the start of what we think of as programming. I don't have a lot of background on the topic, but Beyer doesn't just cover Hopper's life--he covers a good chunk of the history of the computing industry too. There are a lot of parallels to today's industry and some of the differences are really fascinating too. Well worth a read.
March 26, 2010
Definitely the most exciting and boring book I've ever read. It's dry as toast and if you're interested in Grace as a woman, this isn't the place. But I found it thrilling. Beyer takes us back to the creation of the computer. Think giant machines with movable parts and connections that were changed by hand for each function. Gates and Jobs were still in diapers. We take everything for granted, including the name--computers. It's a shock to realize that nothing existed--not even the terminology. This is something we've rarely witnessed--the creation of a dramatically world changing invention by trial, error and instinct. It's remarkable to realize that its creators had widely different views of its future. If the true visionaries like Grace hadn't prevailed, you wouldn't be reading this but you'd probably have Excel. It's scary to think what might or might not have happened if the cast of characters varied by even one or two people. There's much in the book I didn't understand but that was ok. I understood the outcome if not the thinking and process. Adm. Hopper has a massive list of accomplishments to her credit but what seems like the most important one isn't even named with the term we use for it today. User-friendly. Grace was dedicated to moving the computer from the realm of mathematicians to ordinary people. Her goal was to create automated programming using real words that real people could understand. Whatawoman!
November 12, 2012
Facinating read on the development of progammong, but less about Grace than the book's title and blurb had me believe. I'd recommend it to anyone with an interrest in software development, but the lack of a more human angle might put others off.
January 2, 2017
A great book that details both historical and technical aspects of the beginning of computers from the perspective of software development. It helps explain why things are the way they are and gives credit to the men and women who made contributions to the field.
February 11, 2024
I wanted to like this book more. And I did quite enjoy the first 100 pages which I read in one evening. Well, except for the first chapter, which was perhaps the worst first chapter of a book in the history of biography. It was an incredibly dry and agonizing exploration of the process of writing historical fiction (I think, I’m actually not 100% sure what purpose the first chapter served). If this chapter had been 10 pages longer, I probably would have given up on the book altogether. Thankfully the Hopper story started in earnest with the end of Chapter 1.
And then I was riveted for a while. Of course, the fact that I’ve worked in software development for 40 years made me perfectly comfortable reading lengthy passages about computer hardware, debugging programs, writing subroutines, and compiling source code. I noticed some of the worst reviews of this book come from people who have little or no software development experience.
To me, the basic problem with this book is that the author just isn’t a good writer— or at least not a very good writer of biographical fiction. I don’t mind, as other reviewers did, that the story didn’t focus more on Hopper the person, rather than on the history of computer innovation and invention during and after WWII. I found the content interesting and relevant to my long technology career.
What bothered me most was repetition. I’m not sure why the author felt a need to often repeat entire sentences, or even paragraphs, many times using the same words and phrases verbatim that were used just tens of pages prior. Having attempted to write a novel myself once, I would imagine the reason for such repetition is laziness, and bad editing. It’s not hard to notice and fix repeated words and phrases during a re-read. But this author apparently wasn’t a fan of that kind of attention.
The second problem was the author’s dry, distant, and lifeless tone. He really didn’t seem invested in the subject matter, even when retelling some of the most important and meaningful moments of Hopper’s life. This book had the emotional and empathetic soul of a boulder.
One favorite writing technique of the author was to follow every quote with a sentence using other words to explain what the quote said. While on occasion such summarization and clarification is useful and appreciated, at other times it comes across as downright patronizing, and a waste of words. You’ve heard of man-splaining? This had the feel of author-splaining.
I also found that the book suffered from chronology disorder. I’m certain I didn’t notice every instance of this, because it would often creep up when least expected. The author would, at times, jump forward or backward by a number of years, to facilitate the narrative. This technique has gained popularity in the last two decades among fiction writers, along with “head hopping” among two or more primary characters. But an author’s application of subtle “time hopping”, at will and without warning, is very much unwelcome in a historical biography. Again, I can only blame the frequency of this to the author’s and editor’s laziness or inexperience.
Finally in the redundancy category, the entire last chapter was a dreary and mechanical repetition of sentences and paragraphs from the book I’d just spent three nights reading. I understand the need for a summary, but if it offers nothing fresh and new, it’s anticlimactic and unnecessary. This chapter wasn’t short, and once I realized what it was, I just skimmed most of it. This left a bad taste after an already frustrating reading experience.
I won’t patronize you with a summary of the previous paragraphs, but I will add that I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the subject matter: the people, the places, and the inventions, were of great interest to me. This is the primary reason I was able to zip through this book. But I’m not going to recommend it to anyone, because of the poor effort put into making this an enjoyable experience for the reader.
And then I was riveted for a while. Of course, the fact that I’ve worked in software development for 40 years made me perfectly comfortable reading lengthy passages about computer hardware, debugging programs, writing subroutines, and compiling source code. I noticed some of the worst reviews of this book come from people who have little or no software development experience.
To me, the basic problem with this book is that the author just isn’t a good writer— or at least not a very good writer of biographical fiction. I don’t mind, as other reviewers did, that the story didn’t focus more on Hopper the person, rather than on the history of computer innovation and invention during and after WWII. I found the content interesting and relevant to my long technology career.
What bothered me most was repetition. I’m not sure why the author felt a need to often repeat entire sentences, or even paragraphs, many times using the same words and phrases verbatim that were used just tens of pages prior. Having attempted to write a novel myself once, I would imagine the reason for such repetition is laziness, and bad editing. It’s not hard to notice and fix repeated words and phrases during a re-read. But this author apparently wasn’t a fan of that kind of attention.
The second problem was the author’s dry, distant, and lifeless tone. He really didn’t seem invested in the subject matter, even when retelling some of the most important and meaningful moments of Hopper’s life. This book had the emotional and empathetic soul of a boulder.
One favorite writing technique of the author was to follow every quote with a sentence using other words to explain what the quote said. While on occasion such summarization and clarification is useful and appreciated, at other times it comes across as downright patronizing, and a waste of words. You’ve heard of man-splaining? This had the feel of author-splaining.
I also found that the book suffered from chronology disorder. I’m certain I didn’t notice every instance of this, because it would often creep up when least expected. The author would, at times, jump forward or backward by a number of years, to facilitate the narrative. This technique has gained popularity in the last two decades among fiction writers, along with “head hopping” among two or more primary characters. But an author’s application of subtle “time hopping”, at will and without warning, is very much unwelcome in a historical biography. Again, I can only blame the frequency of this to the author’s and editor’s laziness or inexperience.
Finally in the redundancy category, the entire last chapter was a dreary and mechanical repetition of sentences and paragraphs from the book I’d just spent three nights reading. I understand the need for a summary, but if it offers nothing fresh and new, it’s anticlimactic and unnecessary. This chapter wasn’t short, and once I realized what it was, I just skimmed most of it. This left a bad taste after an already frustrating reading experience.
I won’t patronize you with a summary of the previous paragraphs, but I will add that I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the subject matter: the people, the places, and the inventions, were of great interest to me. This is the primary reason I was able to zip through this book. But I’m not going to recommend it to anyone, because of the poor effort put into making this an enjoyable experience for the reader.
November 21, 2025
The main takeaways: IBM resulted from the census bureau and the Navy had a huge impact in computer programming.
The theme of the book is that invention is collaboration.
I enjoyed reading this, however it became pretty technical at times. I would imagine a person who is a computer programmer would enjoy this book on a deeper level than me.
" Internal memory was the key ingredient to allow long and complicated sequences of operations to be executed at an electronic rather than a mechanical speed" p121
" it was no use trying to learn math unless they could communicate with other people - Grace Hopper" p124
" Though she insisted that copies of all correspondence be passed through her, Hopper did this in order to better orchestrate the efforts of others rather than to control the direction of compiler development." p237
IBM won a large government contract in 1953 based on their ability to build hardware quickly. Using the coding knowledge from that government contract IBM was able to take over the market for computers. p258
" Though at first glance ' Nomenclature Committee Chair' is not the most striking title, the position gave Hopper an opportunity to define a common language for the industry as a whole." p278
" Hopper envisioned a future wherein computers would be indispensable to a diverse set of people and organizations. In such a world, both elite mathematicians and high school graduates would need to converse with the machines." p312
" Hopper had the habit of assigning the most difficult technical problems to the youngest and least experienced members of a team... as Hopper glibly explained, young people did not know that they were supposed to fail... Hopper felt that young, inexperienced programmers often had the ability to look beyond 'what is' and grasp 'what could be'." p314-315
" Proactive invention extends well beyond the initial moments of creative inspiration; it involves the patient, time-intensive construction of a sustainable infrastructure that supports the new technology." p318
The theme of the book is that invention is collaboration.
I enjoyed reading this, however it became pretty technical at times. I would imagine a person who is a computer programmer would enjoy this book on a deeper level than me.
" Internal memory was the key ingredient to allow long and complicated sequences of operations to be executed at an electronic rather than a mechanical speed" p121
" it was no use trying to learn math unless they could communicate with other people - Grace Hopper" p124
" Though she insisted that copies of all correspondence be passed through her, Hopper did this in order to better orchestrate the efforts of others rather than to control the direction of compiler development." p237
IBM won a large government contract in 1953 based on their ability to build hardware quickly. Using the coding knowledge from that government contract IBM was able to take over the market for computers. p258
" Though at first glance ' Nomenclature Committee Chair' is not the most striking title, the position gave Hopper an opportunity to define a common language for the industry as a whole." p278
" Hopper envisioned a future wherein computers would be indispensable to a diverse set of people and organizations. In such a world, both elite mathematicians and high school graduates would need to converse with the machines." p312
" Hopper had the habit of assigning the most difficult technical problems to the youngest and least experienced members of a team... as Hopper glibly explained, young people did not know that they were supposed to fail... Hopper felt that young, inexperienced programmers often had the ability to look beyond 'what is' and grasp 'what could be'." p314-315
" Proactive invention extends well beyond the initial moments of creative inspiration; it involves the patient, time-intensive construction of a sustainable infrastructure that supports the new technology." p318
March 3, 2017
Grace Hopper is often called the mother of COBOL. I started my computing career with COBOL, so I was interested to see its beginnings.
More than that, though, Grace Hopper invented the compiler, a way of communicating with a computer that didn't rely on an intimate understanding of both mathematics, and the machine's hardware to obtain results. I wanted to know how she went about that.
And I found out about those things from this book! The title is a bit misleading, however. Yes, it is about Grace Hopper but the primary focus is on early computing devices and how they were programmed. It's about how programming developed, the kind of people who were programmers, and the democratisation of programming by making it available to "ordinary people." The way Hopper went about that was, essentially, open source. She believed strongly in the principles of openness, continuous improvement through iteration and collaboration that informs today's open source software.
All in all, I found this book very interesting. Some of this happened within my lifetime and it's amazing -- incredible -- to think back on how programming started and how far we've since come.
The style is a tad academic for me. By that I don't mean it's impossibly abstract or uses impenetrable prose; on the contrary, it's quite an easy read. However, there are the occasional academic sidetracks, such as pondering the role of the historian capturing early computing history and some of the resultant difficulties. Honestly, I don't care about that. What I wanted was info about Hopper and the compiler and COBOL!
I read the Kindle edition of the book and like many Kindle books, it seems to have been scanned and run through optical character recognition. Sometimes there's an odd word which pulls you out of the narrative a bit. Other times, it's a flat-out mistake; at least twice the book talks about "Grace Flopper".
More than that, though, Grace Hopper invented the compiler, a way of communicating with a computer that didn't rely on an intimate understanding of both mathematics, and the machine's hardware to obtain results. I wanted to know how she went about that.
And I found out about those things from this book! The title is a bit misleading, however. Yes, it is about Grace Hopper but the primary focus is on early computing devices and how they were programmed. It's about how programming developed, the kind of people who were programmers, and the democratisation of programming by making it available to "ordinary people." The way Hopper went about that was, essentially, open source. She believed strongly in the principles of openness, continuous improvement through iteration and collaboration that informs today's open source software.
All in all, I found this book very interesting. Some of this happened within my lifetime and it's amazing -- incredible -- to think back on how programming started and how far we've since come.
The style is a tad academic for me. By that I don't mean it's impossibly abstract or uses impenetrable prose; on the contrary, it's quite an easy read. However, there are the occasional academic sidetracks, such as pondering the role of the historian capturing early computing history and some of the resultant difficulties. Honestly, I don't care about that. What I wanted was info about Hopper and the compiler and COBOL!
I read the Kindle edition of the book and like many Kindle books, it seems to have been scanned and run through optical character recognition. Sometimes there's an odd word which pulls you out of the narrative a bit. Other times, it's a flat-out mistake; at least twice the book talks about "Grace Flopper".
May 2, 2022
I feel like this book does a diservice to Adm. Grace Hopper, regardless of what another Admiral says.
The publication date is reportedly 2009, but this reads like something from 2002 just after Y2K when " The Internet" was still in its infancy. This also reads like a doctoral dissertation of computing....which Grace Hopper happens to be present.
Very little meaty substance on Grace Hopper, the person. More overviews on Grace Hopper, the programmer. No real dissertation on her management style or how to lead just " Grace Hopper lead by collaboration and everyone was happy because she collaborated, yay!"
Reportedly an overview of Grace Hopper's life, instead it covers about 25 years from her work at Harvard on Mark 1 to the invention of COBOL. Here again, the time line is screwed up, as it speaks of COBOL as an ongoing project that is wildly successful, not as a 50+ year old program that the DOD is struggling to train people in.
Short shrift is given to Grace Hopper's life. Her decision to divorce is given probably three sentences, her struggles with alcoholism is a chapter- but couched in the struggles relative to computing at the time- and as stated, her collaboration and leadership style is never dissected.
The author falls victim to the issues which he himself is recording- not enough discussion of Grace Hopper. And again, it reads like a University Paper, where five dollar words replace ten cent ones, ruminations on techological collaboration and the necessity of idea exchange supplement reams of technical data, and it is hard to break into the discussion because the discussion is in a dorm room by third year engineering students and you couldn't possibly comprehend.
I like Grace Hopper. I like reading. I tolerate this book.
The publication date is reportedly 2009, but this reads like something from 2002 just after Y2K when " The Internet" was still in its infancy. This also reads like a doctoral dissertation of computing....which Grace Hopper happens to be present.
Very little meaty substance on Grace Hopper, the person. More overviews on Grace Hopper, the programmer. No real dissertation on her management style or how to lead just " Grace Hopper lead by collaboration and everyone was happy because she collaborated, yay!"
Reportedly an overview of Grace Hopper's life, instead it covers about 25 years from her work at Harvard on Mark 1 to the invention of COBOL. Here again, the time line is screwed up, as it speaks of COBOL as an ongoing project that is wildly successful, not as a 50+ year old program that the DOD is struggling to train people in.
Short shrift is given to Grace Hopper's life. Her decision to divorce is given probably three sentences, her struggles with alcoholism is a chapter- but couched in the struggles relative to computing at the time- and as stated, her collaboration and leadership style is never dissected.
The author falls victim to the issues which he himself is recording- not enough discussion of Grace Hopper. And again, it reads like a University Paper, where five dollar words replace ten cent ones, ruminations on techological collaboration and the necessity of idea exchange supplement reams of technical data, and it is hard to break into the discussion because the discussion is in a dorm room by third year engineering students and you couldn't possibly comprehend.
I like Grace Hopper. I like reading. I tolerate this book.
August 11, 2021
I feel like this book tried to do a little too much. I can see how its intention was to tell the story of how modern day computers began through Grace Hopper's life and career. It's a decent premise and it mostly worked. There was a part about a third or half-way through the book where Grace Hopper just takes a back seat and I'm pretty sure she wasn't event mentioned for a few dozen pages (maybe a little exaggeration, but she definitely wasn't the focal point. Then the book started covering her idea of "automatic programming" (known today as compilers) and that's where it started to get really good for me. Unfortunately for me, the vast majority of the book was about the early days of computing (which I'm less interested in) and the last part of the book was about Grace Hopper's involvement in the birth of compilers and programming languages (which I'm way more interested in). Strangely the last couple of chapters had some pretty obvious typos/errors, so I feel like the author came up against a deadline or was losing interest in the project and just hurried to get it done. It's too bad, but understandable if that was what happened.
Overall, I'm glad I read it because now I'm know a little bit more about Grace Hopper and her involvement with the birth of computers. I think I'll keep looking for a better book about Grace Hopper's involvement in compilers, though.
Overall, I'm glad I read it because now I'm know a little bit more about Grace Hopper and her involvement with the birth of computers. I think I'll keep looking for a better book about Grace Hopper's involvement in compilers, though.
March 24, 2023
If you want to know about Grace Hopper as a mathematician, a computer scientist, a programmer, an inventor, a computing pioneer, and how she ultimately helped to shape the computer revolution and information age, then this is the book for you. Beyer doesn't waste time in Hopper's childhood and early adolescent, and instead places the reader right into the action. As long as you keep in mind the book's title, the "dryness" of the field of computer architecture and computer science as other reviewers have labelled it (I didn't find it dry), and you're somewhat familiar with programming language concepts, then you should be fine. If you're a programmer, you'll be graceful that we've things as compilers by the end of the book.
Unlike many biographical accounts, this book takes its time to set up the historical context and the environment in which Hopper developed; Hopper was quite a collaborative person, and this is evident through her work. For example, you might wonder why Beyer spends so much time talking about Howard Aiken and his Harvard Mark machines, but this is important because Aiken was foundational to Hopper's early career as a computing scientist. The same applies to EMCC, Remington Rand, etc.
For those wondering if this might be one of those "girl boss" type of books, fear not. In this account, Grace Hopper is a mathematician and computer scientist that happened to be a woman.
Unlike many biographical accounts, this book takes its time to set up the historical context and the environment in which Hopper developed; Hopper was quite a collaborative person, and this is evident through her work. For example, you might wonder why Beyer spends so much time talking about Howard Aiken and his Harvard Mark machines, but this is important because Aiken was foundational to Hopper's early career as a computing scientist. The same applies to EMCC, Remington Rand, etc.
For those wondering if this might be one of those "girl boss" type of books, fear not. In this account, Grace Hopper is a mathematician and computer scientist that happened to be a woman.
June 18, 2018
Better Title: My first EH101 Essay: A survey of early computing challenges and the people solving them, like Grace Hopper
There was a lot of effort here, but this book was not about Grace. It was a serviceable intro to the very beginning of the industry. But Grace as a person does not really show up until chapter 6, and does not become a person (as opposed to just a name) until chapter 9.
The last chapter (11) is actually a nice summary of the the things that were unique about Grace. It would have made a great intro for to a detailed bio.
It would have been a two-star book, but there were so many typos--bad typos, about 100 or so--that caused me to re-read or be confused that I had to go with one star. (For example, I noted two instances of "Grace FLopper", a photo caption randomly in the middle of a paragraph, and a sentence missing its last few words.)
There was a lot of effort here, but this book was not about Grace. It was a serviceable intro to the very beginning of the industry. But Grace as a person does not really show up until chapter 6, and does not become a person (as opposed to just a name) until chapter 9.
The last chapter (11) is actually a nice summary of the the things that were unique about Grace. It would have made a great intro for to a detailed bio.
It would have been a two-star book, but there were so many typos--bad typos, about 100 or so--that caused me to re-read or be confused that I had to go with one star. (For example, I noted two instances of "Grace FLopper", a photo caption randomly in the middle of a paragraph, and a sentence missing its last few words.)
July 31, 2017
I find Grace Hopper's dedicated, collaborative and pioneering work in computer programming inspiring, the writing of this book was so technical I could only skim it. I was reminded of Alan Turing: The Enigma. I tried to read The Enigma after watching The Imitation Game and couldn't get through it. I skimmed most of this book and was amazed at how much information was given about the men Grace worked for and with and how relatively little was supplied about her. Perhaps that wasn't the point of this book but I was disappointed.
April 16, 2022
This isn't just a biography of Grace Hopper. Although you'll learn about her outstanding career you'll also have a solid understanding of the start of the computer age. We read this book for book club and one member commented that it was almost like there were two authors, one that told stories about Grace and one that was much more technical and documented the history of computing. Definitely worth reading, but it is somewhat dry in parts.
August 31, 2024
This could have been a lot better. The last years of Grace Hopper are fit in 3-4 pages, and they would've merited probably the same size as the rest of the book.
The book is more a history of the early work in computation and languages than a biography of Grace Hopper (which I hoped it'd be), but even in this regard it's a bit lacking, as the context for language creation and actual decision taken in their design is largely missing.
The book is more a history of the early work in computation and languages than a biography of Grace Hopper (which I hoped it'd be), but even in this regard it's a bit lacking, as the context for language creation and actual decision taken in their design is largely missing.
November 23, 2017
Great content. I learned a lot about some of the earliest computers and the origins of key technologies like compilers and portable programming languages. However the writing is poor and very repetitive.
March 10, 2019
Great overview of the beginning of the computer industry and one of its most important inventors/engineers. Grace Hopper not only invented the first compiler but also was hugely influential over the creation COBOL. COBOL! which still runs half the internet...
June 6, 2020
Beyer offers an informative read. Nevertheless, his dry writing and technological jargon made for a lack in connection to the text. This reassured me that the computer field is not for me. But, Grace Hopper sure did make it in that field!
March 14, 2021
So enjoyed reading about one of my heroes in computing, Grace Hopper. Her vision and innovation are part of how the computing community got where we are today. Lots of great info that I hadn't read before, and several new photos, including the famous moth!
March 10, 2024
An interesting read about the life and times of Grace Hopper. She was a pioneer in computer programming and retired from military service as a Rear Admiral. I learn details of her life that I had never heard.
September 19, 2024
En sej kvinde, som er vigtig at kende og huske, når vi tror at computerens historie udelukkende består af mænd. Det er inspirerende at læse hendes historie og jeg gad godt at have læst hele bogen - men det blev for langt og der er for mange andre bøger jeg hellere vil læse.
August 21, 2018
Well written...details about her work were above my understanding.
March 19, 2019
What an extraordinary person!
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