🚀 go-pugleaf

John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Roedy Green wrote:
>> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:26:44 -0000, nebulous99@gmail.com wrote, quoted
>> or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>>
>>>> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
>>> Not exactly a ringing endorsement of women in technical fields, I'm
>>> afraid...:)
>>
>> Until you think that people used assembler often with absolute
>> numerical addresses prior to that.  It a was still a big leap.
> 
> IAL (later ALGOL) and FORTRAN antedated COBOL, as well as a few less 
> well known.
>
Also the FLOWMATIC and MATHMATIC languages.

>> It is very hard to design a high level language when nobody has ever
>> coded in one before. There is no practical experience to guide.
>> Further programs were much smaller and simpler then. The problems of
>> maintenance and managing complexity did not show up right away. 
> 
> It's rather an exaggeration, though. She was important to the effort -- 
> most of all, she invented the FLOW-MATIC language, which was one of 
> COBOL's two chief parents, the other being IBM Commercial Translator, -- 
> but to say that she "invented COBOL" is silly.
> 
IIRC she was a member of the first group to demonstrate that a computer 
could handle textual data.

She designed and wrote the first compiler and designed FLOWMATIC, the 
first English-like programming language and the basis of COBOL.


-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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