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#TestCulture ๐Ÿฆ… Episode 4 - Grace Murray Hopper, or the birth of the term โ€˜Bugโ€™

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was born on ๐ƒ๐ž๐œ๐ž๐ฆ๐›๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ—, ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ—๐ŸŽ๐Ÿ” in New York. She was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral, and a ๐—ฝ๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ of computer programming, who invented one of the first linkers.

Early in her life, Grace Murray Hopper showed a ๐•“๐•š๐•˜ interest in engineering. As a child, she would often take apart household tools and put them back together. ๐Ÿ”งโš™๏ธ

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United Statesโ€™ entry into World War II, Grace decided to join ๐š๐š‘๐šŽ ๐š ๐šŠ๐š› ๐šŽ๐š๐š๐š˜๐š›๐š. She was initially rejected, but she persisted and received a waiver to join the U.S. Naval Reserve (Womenโ€™s Reserve).

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Defense Distinguished Service Medal, U.S. Naval Reserve Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom... She has won many awards during her career (9 in total). ๐Ÿ†

In ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ—๐Ÿ“๐Ÿ—, Grace served as a technical consultant to the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL), and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language).

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On ๐’๐ž๐ฉ๐ญ๐ž๐ฆ๐›๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ—๐Ÿ’๐Ÿ•, Grace Murray Hopper records โ€˜the first computer bugโ€™ in the logbook of Harvard's Mark II computer.

The problem was attributed to ๐˜ข ๐˜ฎ๐˜ฐ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ caught between relay contacts in the computer, which Hopper duly recorded in the Mark II logbook with the explanation, "First actual case of bug found." The bug was actually found by others, but Hopper chose the name in the logbook.

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Grace is the person who probably made the incident famous. Thomas Edison reported โ€˜bugsโ€™ in his designs as early as the ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ–๐ŸŽ๐ŸŽ๐ฌ, but this was the first bug identified in a computer.

Learn more about the foundations of the term โ€˜Bugโ€™ on the Agilitest' blog. Thread on Twitter.


๐Ÿ“š ๐•Š๐• ๐•ฆ๐•ฃ๐•”๐•–๐•ค:

๐ŸŽด https://agilitest.com/cards/prevent-bugs

๐ŸŒ https://college-de-france.fr/site/wendy-mackay/inaugural-lecture-2022-02-24-18h00.htm

๐ŸŒ https://universalis.fr/encyclopedie/grace-hopper/

๐ŸŒ https://nationalgeographic.org/thisday/sep9/worlds-first-computer-bug/

๐Ÿ““ https://vassar.edu/stories/2017/assets/images/170706-legacy-of-grace-hopper-hopperpdf.pdf
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