BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY

Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700

College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Grace Murray Hopper

She was an American computer scientist, mathematician,
and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first
programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a
pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the
first linkers. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of
machine-independent programming languages, and the
FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this
theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-
level programming language still in use today.
Born: December 9, 1906, New York City, U.S.
Died: January 1, 1992 (aged 85), Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
Place of burial: Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance: United States Years of service: 1943–1986
Service/branch: United States Navy Rank: Rear admiral (lower half)
Prior to joining the Navy, Hopper earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and
was a professor of mathematics at Vassar College. Hopper attempted to enlist in the Navy
during World War II but was rejected because she was 34 years old. She instead joined the
Navy Reserves. Hopper began her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the
Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly
Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer.
At Eckert–Mauchly she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers. She
believed that a programming language based on English was possible. Her compiler
converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. By 1952, Hopper had
finished her program linker (originally called a compiler), which was written for the A-0
System. During her wartime service, she co-authored three papers based on her work on the
Harvard Mark 1.
In 1954, Eckert–Mauchly chose Hopper to lead their department for automatic
programming, and she led the release of some of the first compiled languages like FLOW-
MATIC. In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, which consulted Hopper to
guide them in creating a machine-independent programming language. This led to the
COBOL language, which was inspired by her idea of a language being based on English
words. In 1966, she retired from the Naval Reserve, but in 1967 the Navy recalled her to active
duty. She retired from the Navy in 1986 and found work as a consultant for the Digital
Equipment Corporation, sharing her computing experiences.
The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper was named for her, as
was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. A college at Yale University was
renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November
22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Barack Obama.
 BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY
Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700
College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS

 WORLD WAR II
Hopper tried to enlist in the Navy early in World War II.
She was rejected for a few reasons. At age 34, she was
too old to enlist, and her weight to height ratio was too
low. She was also denied on the basis that her job as a
mathematician and mathematics professor at Vassar
College was valuable to the war effort. During the war
in 1943, Hopper obtained a leave of absence from
Vassar and was sworn into the United States Navy
Hopper's name on a duty roster for the
Reserve; she was one of many women who volunteered
Bureau of Ships Computation Project at to serve in the WAVES.
Harvard, which built and operated the Mark
I.
She had to get an exemption to enlist; she was 15 pounds (6.8 kg) below the Navy minimum
weight of 120 pounds (54 kg). She reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve
Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hopper graduated
first in her class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at
Harvard University as a lieutenant, junior grade. She served on the Mark I computer
programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken.
Hopper and Aiken co-authored three papers on the Mark I, also known as the Automatic
Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper's request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end
of the war was declined due to her advanced age of 38. She continued to serve in the Navy
Reserve. Hopper remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until 1949, turning down a full
professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract at
Harvard.

UNIVAC
In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert–
Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior
mathematician and joined the team developing the
UNIVAC I. Hopper also served as UNIVAC director of
Automatic Programming Development for
Remington Rand. The UNIVAC was the first known
large-scale electronic computer to be on the market in
1950, and was more competitive at processing
information than the Mark I.
When Hopper recommended the development of a
new programming language that would use entirely
Hopper in a computer room in Washington,
D.C., 1978, photographed by Lynn Gilbert
 BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY
Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700
College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

English words, she "was told very quickly that [she] couldn't do this because computers didn't
understand English." Still, she persisted. "It's much easier for most people to write an English
statement than it is to use symbols," she explained. "So I decided data processors ought to be
able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into
machine code."
Her idea was not accepted for three years. In the meantime, she published her first paper on
the subject, compilers, in 1952. In the early 1950s, the company was taken over by the
Remington Rand Corporation, and it was while she was working for them that her original
compiler work was done. The program was known as the A compiler and its first version was
A-0.
In 1952, she had an operational link-loader, which at the time was referred to as a compiler.
She later said that "Nobody believed that," and that she "had a running compiler and
nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."
In 1954, Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming.
Beginning in 1954, Hopper's work was influenced by the Laning and Zierler system, which
was the first compiler to accept algebraic notation as input. Her department released some
of the first compiler-based programming languages, including MATH-MATIC and FLOW-
MATIC.
Hopper said that her compiler A-0, "translated mathematical notation into machine code.
Manipulating symbols was fine for mathematicians but it was no good for data processors
who were not symbol manipulators. Very few people are really symbol manipulators. If they
are, they become professional mathematicians, not data processors. It's much easier for most
people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols. So I decided data processors
ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them
into machine code. That was the beginning of COBOL, a computer language for data
processors. I could say 'Subtract income tax from pay' instead of trying to write that in octal
code or using all kinds of symbols. COBOL is the major language used today in data
processing."

 COBOL
In the spring of 1959, computer experts from industry and
government were brought together in a two-day conference
known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages
(CODASYL). Hopper served as a technical consultant to the
committee, and many of her former employees served on the
short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL
(an acronym for Common Business-Oriented Language). The
new language extended Hopper's FLOW-MATIC language
with some ideas from the IBM equivalent, COMTRAN.
Hopper's belief that programs should be written in a language
Hopper at the UNIVAC I console, c. 1960
 BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY
Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700
College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

that was close to English (rather than in machine code or in languages close to machine code,
such as assembly languages) was captured in the new business language, and COBOL went
on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date. Among the members of the
committee that worked on COBOL was Mount Holyoke College alumna Jean E. Sammet.
From 1967 to 1977, Hopper served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages
Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank
of captain in 1973. She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of
a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy.

Standards

In the 1970s, Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large, centralized
systems with networks of small, distributed computers. Any user on any computer node could
access common databases located on the network. She developed the implementation of
standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early
programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to
these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects
of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration)
were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
 BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY
Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700
College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EPIGRAM
“Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down.
Respect for one’s superiors; care for one’s crew.”

Explanation:

There are two important threads that connects each of the word in this quotation.
First, the PERFORMANCE wherein an effective leadership will result in superior
performance and achievement of individuals, teams and organizations. Second, the
FOLLOWER where it talks on how there can be no leaders in isolation. It implies in some
ways that followers accept—in some way—to follow a leader. In Hopper’s definition or
quote about leadership. Loyalty, respect and care are the important main points and
values to follow in order to be a good leader. In order to achieve a good leadership, one
must know how to give feedback and ready to receive feedback as well. A two-way
street leadership that goes hand in hand wherein it wishes or aims to achieve growth
both in organization or group and an individual growth also. Leadership is about having
your say and it goes in both direction, up and down. “Respect for one’s superiors; care for
one’s crew”, a part of the quote wherein it weighs a major role. Having respect to anyone
higher and also a care to its members shows how a leader is dependable and reliable. In
order to have a successful leadership and team, a mutual respect is essential.
 BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY
Malaybalay City Bukidnon, 8700
College of Education
Casisang Annex Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Filipino

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION
Leadership is not a simple thing and is not easy. There are a lot of things that needs
to be considered in order to assert that the particular leadership is good and successful.
Leaders provide guidance, motivation, and inspiration when achieving goals. They are the
one who helps create a vision and gather people who believe in same common cause. Being
a leader, one must possess the necessary skills and knowledge to make informed decisions
and solve problems effectively.
In the 21st Century wherein the use of modern technology is observable and it already
became part of our daily life. There are a lot of factors that might affect the different aspects
of leadership. A leader might use the technology in order to effectively apply and achieve
the desired goals. But the most important thing that we people must remember, the
different values that shows the quality of a good leader. The qualities that helps people to
identify who they will follow. By reading the biography about Grace Hopper, the thing that
I realized after knowing her contributions and background; I pondered that she is a
competent type of person, even though she got rejected many times in applying in the navy
she still pursue it and never give up. She goes out of the box and broke the stereotype of
many. Women can and will do the thing s that they want to and no one can disagree with
it. Women can achieve what men can do and be more successful than them. Each one of us
has our own definition and criteria of a good leader. For me, a good leadership is where a
leader treats their teams with respect, gaining respect in return. It has been an old saying,
“Respect be gets Respect”, that is why we people must know how to respect each other. We
tend to have different beliefs and opinions but we need to be aware also that it is just not
us, who have their own opinion regarding a certain matter also. Being transparent or clear,
where being open and honest at the same time makes the work more efficient and
enjoyable. Having clear intentions, reassures the followers or the members that this certain
person is good and capable. Trusting, leadership requires delegation, trusting the team to
complete the assigned tasks with excellence really do produce a positive morale and mutual
respect.
Lastly, we must not forget that true leaders try to learn and respect the perspectives
of people by listening to them without interrupting or judging what they have to say,
whether it is positive or bad. By engaging with coworkers and soliciting their comments and
opinions, you can improve your own communication abilities. In any type of leadership,
COMMUNICATION IS A MUST!