Going with Grace
Day 64 of Writing
It is just a coincidence that our friend’s recent feature film had a main character named Grace, as does my story. It was the first feature film that he wrote, starred in, and produced. His character’s name was set early, and is part of the title, Getting Grace. Belle writes about this on her blog.
My character’s name was also set early. She is named after and inspired by Admiral Grace Hopper. My Grace meets and gets a chance to talk with Admiral Hopper when she is a teenager. Hopper was a cheerleader for women getting into computers, and she mentored a lot of women.
My Grace uses many different names as aliases. She was born Amy Brennan, but hasn’t used that name in many years, since Amy Brennan is officially dead. Grace is the name she uses most often, and she does it in honor of Grace Hopper.
Admiral Hopper had a remarkable career. She had a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and was a professor of mathematics at Vassar College. When World War II started, she tried to enlist in the Navy but was considered too old at 34. She joined the Navy Reserves and focused on computers.
She was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I, the first general purpose electronic digital computer. It was the first American computer to be marketed for business and administrative use. In a publicity coup, it famously predicted the result of the 1952 Presidential election.
Perhaps her greatest contribution was her push for and development of compiled languages. She is credited with writing the first compiler, which was a huge step forward in computing.
Programming done in machine language is difficult to do and difficult to debug. Science professor Douglas Hofstadter (who wrote one of the most brilliant books I have ever read in his Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid) stated: “Looking at a program written in machine language is vaguely comparable to looking at a DNA molecule atom by atom.”
Hopper believed that computer programming languages that used closer to English syntax would make it much easier to develop complex programs, and she was correct. Computer languages like BASIC, C, and the one Grace is associated with, COBOL (She was nicknamed Grandma COBOL), can be read and debugged with relative ease. COBOL is still widely used on government computers, but since it is not multi-threaded, it should have been abandoned long ago. Still, this 1950s relic of a language endures.
Speaking of debugging, while Grace did not come up with the term, she is associated with it. While she was working on the Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947, a moth was discovered trapped in a relay, causing it to fail. This is considered the very first debugging. That moth is preserved in the Smithsonian.
Another huge benefit of compiled languages is that you can write the code and then compile it for a specific computer, rather than having to rewrite it from scratch for each different piece of computer hardware. This made the market for commercial software practical.
Admiral Hopper was incredibly modest. She did not consider herself a genius (I personally disagree with her on that point), but rather that she just applied common sense and looked for practical solutions. She was also doggedly determined. Her accomplishments and accolades are many, as a quick perusal of her Wikipedia entry will demonstrate.
Grace had an amazing ability to persuade people, which is part of what made her such an effective teacher and lecturer. It also made her a great leader. She was generous with praise and with giving and sharing credit. She mentored many, taught many others, and had the respect and love of those who knew her.
She believed that women made terrific programmers. She offered women from the secretarial pool free classes in programing, which is why a number of accomplished programmers started out as secretaries.
While sexism was and still is a huge problem in tech, women have made countless significant contributions to computers and programming. Long ignored, women’s contribution to programming was most recently celebrated in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, which recounts their incredible contribution to the NASA space program
Grace frequently pointed out the unsung contributions of Betty Holberton, one of the six original ENIAC programmers. Most notably, she wrote the very first computer program that could create a computer program. This was an important part of the inspiration for Grace in her creating a compiler.
In 1842, Ada Lovelace is credited as the very first computer programmer. The piece of code she wrote was important, as it showed that computers could go beyond mere number crunching. It was written for the mechanical Charles Babbage designed Analytical Engine (which was never built).
Ada was the daughter of poet Lord Byron, so it is no surprise that she was a brilliant writer, and able to clearly explain complex topics. Her insights on what computers might be able to do in the future were 100 years ahead of her time.
All of these women are fascinating and I have linked their names to Wikipedia articles on them.
The Admiral and my Grace share a number of traits. There are also traits that I incorporated from my wife, including her negotiating skills and ability to talk to anyone.
There is a third person she is based on. She was high up in the Navy, worked on top secret projects, and I got to interview her. It turns out that she had a lot in common with how I envisioned Grace. More on her and her fascinating life in an upcoming entry.
What’s Up with Us
We are both still battling a creative lull, getting much less done than normal. It is getting a little better, but still somewhat dispiriting.
We are also battling the heat. It went from a chilly by California standards winter right into summer. It is sort of like living in the reverse of the Twilight Zone episode The Midnight Sun.
Turns out it is not just our central heater that went out, but also the air conditioner. I have always said that I prefer cold to heat as with cold, you can keep putting on layers, but with heat, there is a limit to the number of layers you can remove.
While we delayed having someone come in for repairs to the heater, and used a lot of blankets and layers of clothing, it is just too hot to try and tough it out. Thankfully, we had friends who knew someone who made time for us. They got our air conditioning fixed last night and just in time. Today it hit 101 degrees.
Yesterday was very upsetting. I absolutely hate to eat in the car and have always avoided it whenever possible. I am not even that into picnics as I don’t like eating with the dirt. However, just for a change of scenery, we drove over to Balboa Lake to eat safely in the car with a lovely view of the lake.
The park had a lot of people in it. Most did not have masks. Some were ignoring social distancing. Even worse, a vendor with a cart but no mask or gloves was selling candy. Very young unaccompanied children crowded around him to buy their potentially covid laced candy treat. The children had no masks. Another unmasked adult woman approached him to buy candy. They stood close to each other as they chatted.
The park is a clear vector for disease. Sadly, people just don’t seem to be smart enough to do what they need to do. They are either going to have to close the parks or put some supervision there. I saw none.
When I called the park, they said they lacked the manpower to do anything about it. I called the mayor’s office but they seemed uninterested. Someone will file a report to someone. In the meantime, if we ever get around to doing widespread testing and then tracking, I am pretty sure they will track cases back to this park. I am guessing it won’t be the only park.