Grace Hopper: The Original Pirate Hacker

Melissa Pierce
Celebrated film maker Melissa Pierce tells the story of Navy Rear Admiral and Computer Pioneer Grace Murray Hopper - not just one of the first programmers, but a pioneer of the creative rebel culture of modern hackers!

[joeprotola]

Grace was even more important than I had imagined. The concepts of compilation and validation by themselves were majorly significant.

[SeaMonkey]

I was at a presentation Commodore (at the time) Hopper gave while at BE/E school in the Navy and she was not at all what I would call "mutinous" in demeanor. By all accounts (of the time and since) she loved the Navy, though she had little patience for the pomp of flag officers and politicians. Her nanosecond props were to demonstrate to non-technical officers that a length of 11.8 inches was the fastest light (or electricity) could travel in a nanosecond and was thus the physical limit of data speed. By all accounts she acquired the wire from NAVSUPDEP like everyone else. I also think some of the dates mentioned are incorrect.

[TheEightTwenty]

Saw that Letterman episode with Grace in it. Also... hardware *is* actually still the *hit. :)

[timwilson]

Please don't hijack the amazing the Amazing Grace Hopper.

[autohmae]

wtf ? They had a (the?) demo of the Babbage difference engine just lying around ?
When someone says pirate and hacker, I think of Moxie Marlinspike.