Grace Hopper"Probably the most dangerous phrase that anyone could use in the world today is that dreadful one: 'But we've always done it that way.'"- Grace Hopper In order to mend the gender gap in a male dominated industry, I think it is important to embrace the female pioneers in computer science that have established the tech industry we know now. While women today only make up about 20% of computer scientists, women have lead the paths in creating the first computer program, inventing the first computing methods and devices like the compiler, advancing human space exploration, and more. Women are given an underwhelming amount of representation in the tech sector and I find it empowering to find reassurance through history. As a programmer, I am sure you are most grateful for compilers, the translator between humans and computers, converting instructions into machine readable code. Did you know the first compiler was invented by a woman? This woman's name was Grace Hopper(1906-1992), admiral in the United States Navy, computer scientist, and one of the first three "programmers". Hopper was one of the first programmers for the Harvard Mark I computer, "an early protocomputer, built during World War II," the inventor of the compiler, translating English to computers, and she was even one of the original "debuggers" (britannica.com). Grace Hopper was a brilliant mathematician and computer pioneer, receiving a master's and Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale in a time where large numbers of women were receiving doctorates and being presented with new opportunities in the workforce in result of World War II. Hopper was unwavering and brave, joining the United States Navy after initially being rejected based on her size and age. She was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University and was given the opportunity to work on one of the earliest electromechanical computers, the Mark I. Hoppers duty was to program the Mark I, and create the five-hundred page user manual. Hopper was an essential piece of the project, "computing rocket trajectories, creating range tables for new anti-aircraft guns, and calibrating minesweepers" (yale.edu). Post-war, Hopper remained with Harvard, going on to help develop the Mark II and III. While developing the Mark II, Hopper was presented with an unusual task.... Hopper was presented with the task of debugging, literally debugging! Present day, when debugging code, we use methods like test-driven development, peer programming, and more to help resolve our bugs, but why do we call these errors bugs? In 1945, Hopper and her colleagues disassembled the machine after encountering countless errors; after disassembly, Hopper found a large moth lodged into the computer, becoming the first error referred to as a "bug". Later, in 1952 Hopper wrote and developed Arithmetic Language version 0, or A-0. A-0 was a compiler developed for electronic computers, translating written code into binary code readable to the computer. This incredible development lead to the ability to write programs for different machines, instead of code being written specifically for a single machine. This lead to her next invention, Flow-Matic, a computer language that accepted English code and translated it to computer code. Without the creation of Flow-Matic, we would not have our common-day word-based languages instead of mathematical symbols. During an interview in 1980, Hopper explained that "What [she] was after in beginning English language programming was to bring another whole group of people able to use the computer easily," and she "kept calling for more user friendly languages" (yale.edu). Furthermore, Hopper did not stop there. Hopper was also an influential part of establishing common business-orientated language, COBOL for short. Grace Hopper was a leading pioneer in technology, and an influential woman in general. Hopper was brilliantly smart, inventing the first compiler language, COBL, and an admirable veteran. Her movements are felt in present day programming with each line of code written, and was rightfully nicknamed both "Grandma COBL," and "Amazing Grace" for her contributions not only in technology, but for the United States. While Ada Lovelace set the path for computer programming, and understood that numbers are more than quantity, Hopper was able to make the language barrier gate between humans and computers easier and more accessible to use. She is an inspiration for women in her successful efforts of leading in male-dominated industries. Through the exploration and representation of influential women in history, we can successfully patch the gender-gap experienced today in technology. "Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, We've always done it this way. I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise."-Grace Hopper
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Ada LovelaceBeing a female in a male-dominated industry can be difficult to breakthrough. While discrimination is illegal, and equal opportunity employers make incredible strides for inclusive company culture, it is sometimes hard to not feel like you're beginning behind the start-line towards your first job in tech as a woman; in 1995, 37% of computer scientists were women. Today, it's only about 24%.
In these moments, I like to take a step back and reassure myself with history. There is an underwhelming amount of representation for the incredibly rich history of women making significant contributions in the technology sector. In fact, the world's first programmer, writing the first machine algorithm(Bernoulli number sequence), was a woman.... and this was in the 1840s! Her name was Ada Lovelace, and she was one of the first to believe that numbers could represent more than quantities; numbers could be the gate between humans and computers! Lovelace was an accomplished mathematician(reminder that this is the 1800's, and women being mathematicians is VERY uncommon) by the hands of her mother. Ada's mother saw she showed an aptitude for math and science, and encouraged her to pursue it. Ada Lovelace was the world's first computer programmer in a time that computers did not exist. How? One of Lovelace's professors, Charles Babbage, set out to build a machine called the "difference engine" to execute calculations, error-free. This "computer," did not run on electricity like the computer we know today, but rather ran on things like steam, and was completely mechanical. This ambitious project required nearly 25,000 parts, working on cranks, pulleys, and more mechanical parts. Babbage was unable to complete it due to lack of funds. In order to complete this error-free calculation engine, he needed to create a more complex system. This complex system was called the "Analytical Engine," and was proposed by Ada Lovelace, herself. Ada Lovelace created a number sequence algorithm the Analytical Engine could run on a using a punch card system. The machine was brilliant, and completely ahead of its time, featuring capabilities of automatic calculations, storing previous calculations for future calculations, calculating using a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, and even more calculations.. Did I mention the ability for calculations? Similarly to Babbage's first design, this engine was not created. Despite its ability to auto-crunch numbers, Lovelace had a vision that her computer coding could later do more things like playing music and other entertainment purposes..... I guess you could say she was the originating thought for our common-used streaming services like Spotify, Hulu, and more. Notes written by Lovelace described the capability of code to someday handle letters and symbols. She theorized methods for our common day looping, which is repeating a set of instructions in code, and made attempts at developing mathematical programs to win in games of gambling. Her articles written in the 1840s were not discovered and considered contributions to computer science until the 1950's, when republished in Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines in 1953. Roughly nine years after writing her first programming language, Lovelace died at the young age of 36, leaving the legacy of code we know today. A pioneer in the undiscovered land of coding, Ada Lovelace was properly nicknamed "The Enchantress of Numbers," and without her ground-breaking ability to find a gate in the line of communication between humans and numbers, we would not be in the advanced technological state that we're at today. While today women only make up around 20% of programmers in the United States, women have been some of the leading pioneers in the sector of programming, and finding the gems of history that enrich the culture of women in tech is the fuel that can empower us and close the gender gap that exists in computer science. Using SQLSoftware developers play an integral role in any work environment, so it is important that devs acquire good "team player" skills. To be the ideal team member, you must begin by thinking from the perspective of your other team members, clients, and even competitors. To begin, it is important to think like the marketer of your team; your marketer and business analysts on the team are in charge of finding information and asking questions about your business and users. As a marketer, you may want to see how different campaigns performed in the previous month and if it yielded more promising results than running an ad on an industry web page. You may also want to know information about where users come from, and how many unique web clicks you get on your website; this all can be sorted and accomplished with the use of querying (retrieving data from a database).
I have often wondered how my shopping suggestions on Amazon, and movie suggestions on streaming services like Netflix, and Hulu were so incredibly accurate. The reason being is....You guessed it: Databases! A good example of an old-school, non-technology database would be a rotary. Rotaries typically store contact information, are alphabetically sorted, and information can be removed if no longer needed, and can be accessed at a later point. Just like the rotary, companies like Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and more store data about users to better help with suggestions and service! But how do they use this data stored in databases? To get and use this data, you need to use a structured query programming language, SQL. There are many databases you can use including: SQLite, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and MySQL. The basics of using structured query languages lie in the hands of two major components. The data, and the schema. While we have already discussed the importance of data, the schema is just as important. I like the think of the schema as a coin sorter. Coin sorters work to take in different coin types and sort them based on their type(data), and put them in their respective columns. Just like coin sorters, schemas work to assign data to their respective column of the table. Without this, data would solely be stored as text, instead of options like numerical data, date data, and more. This would limit us by removing mathematical functions, and the ability for functional sorting. Databases and how we use them is an integral part of the developers job in order to functionally work together with their team members to their highest ability, and efficiently create the best user experience possible. ![]() My name is Karly Lamm, a now-former LC101 student, and passionate techie. My experience with LaunchCode has been both gripping and stimulating. Personally, LaunchCode for me was a bridge in a time of career uncertainty for myself. I was working as a barista, serving java instead of writing it, and defined myself as a hobbiest in search of my passion. With LaunchCode I’ve discovered that passion! I have completed one of the hardest parts of my career- the foundations. The best part of accomplishing the foundations is that you get to choose what to build and break on top of that, and somewhere between building and breaking is where we find our dreams and as Walt Disney said “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them!” During LaunchCode, I harnessed the foundations of using JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, Angular, Java, and SpringBoot. Overall, I found Java to be my weakest point of execution; however, I found it in me to not give up and conquer this course. To put in perspective, if this course were a jungle of viney paths, I would have gotten through Javascript with a machete, and through Java with a butter knife. Regardless of the tool, I was successful in reaching the end, one just required a bit more time. For myself, the most important concepts I’ll take from LC101 into my career is not necessarily just languages and frameworks we’ve learned, but the ability to work on projects with others, learn more efficiently, and how to be a great googler..Which I think many developers have found to be an underrated skill! Thank you LaunchCode and all of the TAs that have helped me on this journey! I look forward to finding a driven team of like-minded individuals to work with and learn from. |